:T 

MEflDE v.V 

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26 

:opy 1 


.♦ ♦ .♦ ♦ The 

| Proceedings of the Semi- 
Centennial Celebration of 


Emory and Henry College, 
Virginia 


1837—1887 






THE PROCEEDINGS 


OF THE 


SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 


Emory anb Henry College, 


VIRGINIA. 


1837-1887. 



BOSTON: 

RAND AVERY COMPANY, 
tEfje JFranftltn ipress. 

1888. 








4-.LD 


a<2> 


Gift 

Miss Cordelia Jackson 


Oct. 21, 1924 
































Poet* 


CONTENTS. 


FIRST DAY : Sunday, June 5, 1887. 

PAGE 

Extracts from Baccalaureate Sermon by Bishop H. N. 

McTyeire.5 

Sermon before the Y. M. C. A. by Rev. Sam W. Small . . 7 

SECOND DAY: Tuesday, June 7. 

Address of Welcome by President T. W. Jordan, A.M. . . 22 

Semi-Centennial Poem by Rev. T- A. S. Adams, D.D. . . 27 
Address before the Alumni by Hon. John Goode, LL.D. . 34 

The Alumni Lunch. >53 

The Toasts and Responses.54 

Letters from Absent Alumni.74 

THIRD DAY : Wednesday, June 8. 

A Talk to College Boys by Judge II. II. Ingersoll . . 78 

NOTES AND PERSONALS.97 


i 

A 









PROCEEDINGS. 


FTrst D SLy: Sunday, June 5, 188T. 


The baccalaureate sermon was preached at eleven o’clock 
by Bishop H. N. McTyeire. We regret very much that we 
were not able to secure a full report of this sermon. We 
expected the bishop to furnish a copy; but he spoke without 
notes or manuscript, and now says, with one of old, “The 
thing is gone from me.” His text was Heb. xii. 16: “Lest 
there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who 
for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.” The lesson 
read from the Old Testament was Gen. xxvii., in which there 
is an account of Jacob’s cheating Esau out of the blessing. 
The text contained an allusion to this subject. The idea 
elaborated was the evil of the profanity of an under-estimate 
of spiritual things. A parallel was traced between Jacob and 
Esau. The flaws and excellences in the character of each 
were pointed out. The subject was the basis of some whole¬ 
some advice to the graduating class. The sermon was deliv¬ 
ered in that deep, confident tone that holds the attention, and 
carries conviction with it. It was a great sermon of a great 
preacher. 

The following are some thoughts expressed in it: — 

“Men are very much the same in all ages: Old-Testament sins are 
committed in the New Testament.” 

“The lowest form of profanity is the use of oaths,—what we call 
blasphemy. This form of profanity is fast vanishing from the earth. 
There is less of it to-day than thirty years ago, —much less than a hun¬ 
dred years ago.” 




6 


“ Profanity of the highest (basest) form is an under-estimate of 
spiritual things. It is the device of the man who prefers temporal, 
carnal things to heavenly, spiritual things.” 

“An illustration of this kind of profanity is the man who helped sup¬ 
port a church simply because he found it restrained his poor neighbors 
from stealing his sheep and hogs.” 

“ The most illustrious instance of profanity is that of Esau when he 
sold his birthright.” 

“ People who do not want to hear the Bible read, must not come to 
hear me preach.” 

“ Though we live in the age of Bible societies, many people know 
nothing of the Bible except what they hear.” 

“Young gentlemen, the man of system, though he be a plodding 
man, in the long-run will come out ahead.” 

“ ‘ Opportunities make men.’ We say, opportunities make men of 
those who are ready to take advantage of them.” 

“ God has a judgment for men who refuse to honor their parents.” 

“ Whenever it happens, — and it often happens in the crises of life 
— that you cannot do a right thing in a right manner, you may rest 
assured of one of two things: you are not the man to do it, or it is not 
the time to do it.” 

“ If God means to use you for any great good or special purpose, he 
will put you through a course of discipline.” 

“ I was once in a furniture-shop. Lying on the floor, I saw several 
pieces of timber. Speaking to the foreman of the establishment, I 
said, ‘ Why do you not use this? It is of fine grain, and looks very beau¬ 
tiful.’ The foreman said, ‘Yes, we have plenty of that, but we cannot 
use it. It is too soft to be polished.’ Young men, if you are too soft 
to be polished, God will put none of it on you.” 

“Are you of that profane class that prefer an easy time to a useful 
time ? ” 

“ If you are impatient of discipline, if you chafe under it, you will find 
many short cuts offered to get out from under it.” 

“ Macaulay turned his medals into money before he would sell his 
birthright.” 

“ Mortgage the present for the future, and when the future comes, it 
will find you, like Esau, rejected, and seeking repentance in vain with 
tears.” 


7 


Sian cl ay Afternoon, 3.30 o’clock:. 


SERMON 

BEFORE THE Y. M. C. A. 

The annual sermon before the Young Men’s Christian 
Association was preached in the afternoon, under the great 
pavilion on the edge of the campus, by Rev. Sam W. Small, 
one of the famous Georgia evangelists whose fame is filling 
two continents. Mr. Small is a graduate of the college, class 
of 1871. His rare gifts and the great effect of his thrilling 
sermon cannot better be described than in the words of a 
gentleman, “ Never before did I feel myself in the very 
presence of a mastering genius.” 

We are glad we can give this sermon in full. Mr. Small 
began the worship by reading the hymn, “ Awake, my soul, 
stretch every nerve.” The lines in a stanza reading, “Forget 
the steps already trod, and onward urge thy way,” were full 
of significance. After prayer by Dr. E. E. Wiley, Mr. Small 
delivered the following sermon : — 




SERMON BY REV. SAM W. SMALL. 


14 ... O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky ; but can ye not discern the 
signs of the times? ” — Matt. xvi. 3. 

I need not to assure you by many words, my brethren, that 
this occasion is one of great privilege and joy to me. To be 
once more in the midst of these classic scenes, to meet again 
those who can never more become strangers to my heart 
or memory, to clasp hands that in other days were so cheer¬ 
fully helpful, and to recall from the crypts of recollection 
associations so sweet and multiform, furnish me with pleasures 
unspeakable. 

I meet and greet you as a fellow-collegian, and come to 
you, trusting fully our Lord and Master to make the occasion 
helpful and fruitful to us all. 

Turning to the text chosen for this discourse, I do not 
purpose to dwell at all upon the epithet which our Lord 
applied to his hearers when he uttered these significant 
words. It bespoke in them a wilful blindness to self-evident 
truth and its then present manifestations, that, I feel sure, 
finds no counterpart spirit in the assemblage before me this 
afternoon. Ever-augmenting tides of light have been pour¬ 
ing upon the personality and purposes of Christ for more 
than eighteen centuries since that day, and no civilized being 
of the present age is even plausibly presumed to be honestly 
ignorant of the character of Christ and the sufficiency of 
the salvation for the human soul which is in and by him. 
By as much as we are the more enlightened in physical sci¬ 
ence than the Jews of A.D. 30-33, so are we the more 
enlightened in all spiritual knowledge, and powers of spiritual 
foresight. Christ significantly taunted them with what must 
have been a boastful skill in forecasting the weather. When 
the sky was red in the evening, they would predict fair 










































































































































9 


weather ; but, if it happened red and lowering in the morn¬ 
ing, they announced that there would be foul weather that 
day. Like prophets and prophecies have flourished, even 
unto our own days. In many localities “ the oldest inhabit¬ 
ant” still has a monopoly of meteorological data, and is the 
local oracle upon storms and sunshine. Traditional signs of 
the skies are still relied upon largely for forecasts of the 
weather. Our old colored “mammies” used to tell us what 
manner of weather to look for, judging it by the way the 
cattle acted, or the little pigs ran about with straws in their 
mouths. But these crude prophesyings are daily becoming 
more ridiculed than relied upon. Physical science, within 
our times, by permission of God, has solved to approximate 
satisfaction many of those mysteries which formed the 
remarkable riddles of the Book of Job. Those wonderful 
questions which sounded in unsolvable enigmas to the ears of 
the patient man of Uz, and remained equally unreadable to 
a hundred generations of men succeeding him, are in some 
parts being only now made knowable to our race. For how 
many long centuries were men puzzled by the queries to 
Job,— 

“Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds ?” 

Yet God has permitted our generation to know more than 
all other generations of men about “the balancings of the 
clouds.” Within our brief day meteorological science has 
weighed and marked the ways of the clouds and the winds. 
Signal stations are set upon the mountain tops ; the current 
phenomena of the fleets of the skies and of the messengers 
of ^Eolus are telegraphed to the central bureau; and daily, 
at our breakfasts, we may know the singularly accurate pre¬ 
dictions for the weather of the day. The sides of our railway 
cars, as they rush along the iron highways of travel, are 
emblazoned with the signals of these prophecies, that every 
toiler by the wayside may read them, and be forewarned of 
sunshine or of storm. 

Take another instance. For thirty-two centuries the whole 
world, like Job himself, was dumb to the question,— 

“ Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say 
unto thee, Here we are ? ” 


10 


But it was given to our own great Franklin to sail the 
silken voyager to the storm-cloud that caught from its fiery 
tongue the secret of its electric power. And within the 
memory of men before me to-day, our ingenious Morse har¬ 
nessed the mysterious fluid to servile wires, and almost made 
it possible to realize the promise of Puck to “put a girdle 
round about the earth in forty minutes.” To-day we send 
the lightnings over land and under seas, — yea, round the 
globe, — and they return to us with docile fidelity, and say to 
us, “ Here we are! ” 

Still, there are many unsolved riddles in this Book of Job. 
Until the presumptuous scientists solve these successfully 
without the aid of God, their infidel and iconoclastic crusade 
against his Word and our faith will be adjudged altogether 
splenetic, and not a whit sincere. They cannot yet tell us the 
answer to the important but enigmatical query, — 

“ By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east 
wind upon the earth ? ” 

From Boston Bay to the Florida Keys the inhabitants along 
our eastern ocean front are bitterly served by this terrible 
east wind, and are eager for any knowledge that will aid them 
to escape it, or ameliorate its rigors. But the scientists can 
neither answer the whole query, nor even tell us whether 
there be any physical partition of the light, and, if so, what 
dependence the east wind has upon the fact. Pygmy science 
is silenced and overwhelmed by the mere suggestions of this 
mighty mystery of God. It pleases him still to hold a thou¬ 
sand such problems beyond the reach of human analysis and 
subjugation. All we can do in the midst of these riddles, is 
to look up mutely and reverently, patiently awaiting his due 
seasons for their revelation. 

Moral scientists, however, stimulated in zeal, and excited 
to emulation, by these advances and triumphs of physical 
scientists, are also abroad in the world with claims which 
cannot be ignored, and which need to be combated. They 
claim to have enlarged the area of philosophical domina¬ 
tion. They map out their alleged explorations in hitherto 
terra incogtiita of the human constitution, and claim that, by 
newly discovered psychological data, they have discovered 


the ultima Thule of man’s possibilities. They endow him 
with autonomy, and deny him immortality. They enlarge his 
liberty of action, encourage license of thought and life, but 
consign his hopes of eternity to the oblivion of the bone- 
yards of his fellow-brutes. They seduce our souls to reduce 
their expectancy only to the euthanasia of Epicureanism. Or } 
they stolidly refuse us faith in any other possible apotheosis 
than the mute martyrdom of the Stoic. Or, if they permit us 
hope of a continuous existence, it is along the lines of a refined 
renaissance of the eraism and errorisms of the Pythagorean 
philosophy. 

Indeed, to the calm and Christian observer of the course 
and claims of these so-called modern philosophies, there is 
visible so reckless a spirit of blasphemy throughout their 
jugglings with incomplete and inconsequential data, that 
righteous indignation is fatigued in dealing with the denial of 
their dogmatisms. The spirit of the Christ within us is 
stirred to holy wrath in viewing the impudence of these pre¬ 
tenders in proclaiming their new revelations affecting the 
spirit of life, motives and action in man. Though these new 
prophets do come with rich spoils from the fields of specula¬ 
tive philosophy, they do not come with divine authority to 
uproot the ancient landmarks of inspired revelation, and tear 
down the guideboards to simple and sufficient faith erected 
by the holy men of old in obedience to the express directions 
of God. 

The only right response to their invitations that we should 
follow them in their impious invasions of the reserved realms 
of the Eternal Revelator, is the persistent answer of Christ 
himself to the Arch-Tempter, “It is written!” This only 
is the sure and sufficient rebuke to that inferential infidelity 
which would succeed the supremacy of God with Self’s own 
self-enthronement, — the supplanting of Omniscience with 
the autocracy of self-consciousness. 

These speculators upon the yearnings of the immortal part 
in man are the deicides of the age. They are fell usurpers 
in a realm where God alone is sovereign. They are the mod¬ 
ern instances of those who ministered exquisiteness to the 
afflictions of Job, and to whom he cried out, “Ye are forgers 


12 


of lies ; ye are all physicians of no value.” They are the 
latter-day successors of those “ blind guides ” against whom 
Christ hurled the fifth anathema of his terrible indictment of 
the scribes and Pharisees. They are the arrogant autocrats 
concerning what should be the eternal verities who are ready, 
as Paul warned the church at Colosse, to “ spoil you through 
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after 
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” They are 
the pretentious purveyors of those “ oppositions of science 
falsely so called, which some professing have erred concern¬ 
ing the faith,” and against whose insidious doctrines the 
great apostle laid earnest injunctions upon his gospel-son, 
Timothy. 

What, then, is the truth ? 

Who can reveal God’s will concerning us better than God 
himself ? In his Word here [indicating the Bible], God has 
made, so far as we are concerned, the complete revelation of 
his will and his truth. This book, the record of God’s own 
words and ways, and the record, also, that he “ has given 
of his Son,” contains all that he requires or desires us to 
know. To evidence this fact beyond all question, he has 
sealed it in the most awful and solemn words of its wondrous 
text. 

“If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add 
unto him the plagues that are written in this book : and if 
any man shall take away from the words of the book of this 
prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of 
life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are 
written in this book.” 

Who, then, will boldly dare to enlarge or contract the 
authority, the limitations, or the all-sufficiency, of this pub¬ 
lished and sealed testament of the great God of eternity ? 
He is certainly a most reckless innovator who would inter¬ 
pret the plain language of God and of Christ in a spirit of 
elastic latitudinarianism, or endeavor to reduce the stern 
mandates of the Divine Sovereign to the threadbare relics 
of a code instituted for a race or a generation. Thanks be 
to God, true faith scorns the fatal seduction, and clings to 
these laws and demonstrations as the immutable principles 


13 


of a Father and King who is, and ever will be, from age to 
age, “ without variableness or shadow of turning.” 

Christ was, in himself, the demonstrator of the all-suffi¬ 
ciency of this revelation for all the emergencies of our natures 
and lives. Fashioned as we are, confined and limited by the 
like fetters of flesh, made under the law, touched with a feel¬ 
ing of our infirmities, and tempted in all points like as we are, 
he yet walked blameless through all the commandments of 
the divine law, fulfilling them in every jot and tittle, and 
coming unto th q u Consummatum est' y of the cross without 
sin, — himself the sealed and accepted “end of the law for 
righteousness to every one that believeth.” As Son of man, 
by his life of perfect obedience, he demonstrated once and 
forever the perfect adjustment of this perfect law of the 
Lord to every aberration and possibility of human nature. 
Since he lived and died in royal loyalty to its every require¬ 
ment, the power of all men, through riches of grace, to live 
supernaturally loyal to “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus,” has been beyond the right of question. He has 
pioneered, and forever left plain, the high and holy way, over 
which, through a sincere imitation of Christ, we may all 
boldly and confidently come nigh unto God. 

But men are prone to say, “ How shall we work the works 
of God ? ” God has himself anticipated the question, and 
rendered the complete answer. 

“ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
your children : how much more shall your heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke xi. 13 ). 

“ The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, 
he shall teach you all things” (John xiv. 26 ). 

These are the words of Christ himself; and the testimony 
of the saints unto this present day is not alone to their truth, 
but to the actual presence and enabling power of the Holy 
Ghost in all them who have besought his divine, omnipotent 
offices. There is no excuse, then, to any man for not setting 
himself to do “the works of God,” to live after the example 
of Christ, “ perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord,” to 
the confusion of speculative men and the joy of the angels in 
heaven. 


14 


These thoughts return us to our theme. They stand us 
securely upon this high mountain top of God’s holy revelation, 
from which alone we can look out upon the complexities of 
this present world. It is from this point we must calculate 
all moral meridians and all lawful lines of latitude. Stand¬ 
ing, therefore, upon this high place, can we not discern the 
signs of the times ? Can we not, from this Heaven-appointed 
vantage-ground, rightly estimate the errors of our day and 
generation ? 

My time suffices for only a few salient suggestions. 

What means this red and coppery sky that overspreads the 
commercial life of our people ? Whence are all these sounds 
of general plunder, these groans of an outraged sense of jus¬ 
tice, these wild cries of contending interests, and this mad 
haste to monopolize for the few the gifts of God’s bounty to 
the many ? This is an era of rampant commercial speculation. 
The spirit of gambling invades the once soberest and most 
honest interests of the nation. There are competitions in 
the marts that are bottomed upon the rankest and most 
notorious processes of dishonesty. The fruits of the earth — 
these lavish answers of the God-Father to his children’s 
prayers for their daily bread — are “cornered” and gambled 
over with all the heartless glee of a Chinese “fan-tan ” fanatic 
over his favorite game. Adulteration is the artifice of the 
age ; and the use of false weights and false balances, “which 
are an abomination to the Lord,” is the high evidence of 
artistic skill in latter-day trading methods. The masses are 
robbed on all sides that the manipulators may be made mil- 
lionnaires. Capital assumes autocratic powers, and defies law 
to make for it any limitations it shall be bound to respect. 
With reckless blindness to its own best offices, it continues 
the mad revolutions of its myriad grindstones, sharpening 
the faces of the hungered poor, and whetting their teeth 
for the day of a terrible retribution. These lurid skies are 
but reflecting back the rising and flaming indignation of the 
despoiled millions. Who shall say how soon this smouldering 
wrath shall burst forth into a communistic conflagration that 
shall avenge these spoliations to the last item of the awful 
account ? The Siberian wolf, wandering, well-nigh famished, 


15 


over wastes of baffling snow, will not always be restrained by 
wholesome fears. There comes a time to him when the alter¬ 
native of death is a yet more terrible death. Then will he 
invade the valleys, and feast upon the fatlings of the folded 
flocks,—yea, even the blood of the fairest firstlings of the 
fireside. May not men do also this awful thing ? Is it wise 
to goad them to embrace anarchy, and commit themselves to 
the cruel creeds of communism ? Is it not high season 
to call a halt upon greed, and hear God speak ? What saith 
the Lord ? 

“ Righteousness exalteth a nation : but sin is a reproach to 
any people ” (Prov. xiv. 34). 

“ He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him ” 
(Prov. xi. 26). 

“ Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteous¬ 
ness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor’s 
service without wages, and giveth him not for his work” 
(Jer. xxii. 13). 

“ Therefore thus saith the Lord God unto them ; Behold, I, 
even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean 
cattle ” (Ezek. xxxiv. 20, et seq.). 

If we reject the warnings of God, we shall certainly run 
upon a miserable retribution. We can no more hope to 
escape his righteous judgments as a nation than we dare hope 
to defy them successfully as individuals. 

“ Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the 
Lord ” (Lam. iii. 40). 

Again, why do these lowering clouds overspread the politi¬ 
cal firmament of our country ? What do they portend ? 
From whence have they arisen ? 

They seem to some acute observers to be the sombre 
exhalations from the dark and gruesome pools of our politi¬ 
cal life. We are the passive victims to-day of methods and 
practices in our great political organizations that threaten 
the odor and order of our most cherished institutions of 
freedom. 

The political caucus has largely become a public shamble, 
in which the polls and votes of the people are auctioned off 
to the highest bidder. Thoreau once said that “ modern 


16 


freedom is but an exchange of the slavery of feudality for 
the slavery of public opinion.” So, also, may we not add 
that the boasted sovereignty of the American citizen has 
been exchanged for the sovereignty of the party lash ? No 
longer can an American suffragan dare claim to own himself 
or his ballot. Manly independence in political action is 
jeered at in one section as “ mugwumpery,” and in the other 
is denounced as sectional treason, and punished with bitter 
ostracism. Personality is sunk in partyism. Love of coun¬ 
try will only be imputed, nowadays, to him who is most sub¬ 
servient to the party hacks, and most obedient to the party’s 
orders. 

What are the results ? In every Capitol of the States, 
yea, in the Capitol of the nation, it is universally believed 
that legislation is for sale, and that the representatives of 
“the people” are no more than individual speculators in 
special privileges to the few at the expense of the rights of 
the many. “The cohesive power of public plunder” is the 
consolidating force of party majorities. Monopolies are cre¬ 
ated, and perpetuities are granted, in violence to the spirit of 
our institutions, that momentum may be gained, and corrup¬ 
tion funds made available for party success. A senate of 
millionnaires and monopolists is the prima facie proof of the 
degeneration of constituencies and the purchasableness of 
their representatives. “ The old flag and an appropriation ” 
is the slogan that captures the lingering sentimental patriot^ 
ism and the local greed of the lesser constituencies, until the 
adventurers in politics who display the largest audacity and 
faculty for dividing the public treasure are the prime favor¬ 
ites at the polls. The old measurements of statesmanship 
have been contracted until the epithet of “ statesman ” is 
only a title of courtesy; and to be called “a Christian states¬ 
man,” is almost dreaded by those who have professed a loyalty 
they dare not exercise in the discharge of public duties. All 
these are notorious and lamentable facts of our current 
history. 

Again, who does not feel the force, and fear the destructive 
power, of these shifting, consuming, and conflicting winds 
that blow in from the sandy wastes of the world upon the fair 


7 


green pastures of our social life? How hot is the breath of 
some of them, as if their home were in Tophet! What con¬ 
fusion in some, as if they were fresh from the womb of chaos! 
What destruction in others, as if they issued forth from the 
cavern of the cyclone ! They rush in upon our social life 
like furies, seize upon the tender plant-life of our hearth¬ 
stones, hurl them upward into the sunshine and glitter of a 
temporary and fatal exaltation, and then dash them, despoiled, 
disgraced, and dying, upon the bleak rocks that border the 
seas of oblivion. The once innocent recreations of home and 
social life are refined and injected with the passions and 
poisons of aesthetic hellishness, until the only safety for the 
soul is in a clear and uncompromising enmity with the world. 
We dare not open our doors to the demands of modern 
fashions in social affairs, lest they let in these sand-cloud 
siroccos to blast our peace, choke to death the moral life of 
our innocents, and bury the Lares and Penates of our homes 
beneath the debris of our own demolished domiciles. 

Once again, whence come these tempestuous currents of 
“ ologies ” and “isms” which are beating so threateningly 
against the foundations and walls of our religious institutions ? 
What manner of faith have we fallen upon that demands a 
“second probation” for the soul to confirm its constancy? 
What spirit of Antichrist is regnant, or would be so, that 
demands acceptance of the hypotheses of humanitarianism 
as triumphant over the revealed doctrine of imparted divinity? 
What is it that commands such applause for Ingersollism, and 
dethrones Christ to inaugurate the apotheosis of Communism ? 
Why do the masses of the people seem really to. have boy¬ 
cotted the churches, and gone upon a long strike against all 
the religious systems of the age ? I do not profess to know 
the answers to these uppermost and significant queries. I 
am silenced by reverent temerity almost at the threshold of 
suggestion. I know that God is, “ even from everlasting 
to everlasting.” I know that the Saviour of the world is 
“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” 
I know that the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, has come, “that 
he may abide with us forever.” I know that the sacrifice and 
atonement of our Lord was all-sufficient and eternal in their 


8 


purpose to reconcile a sinful race to its loving Father. And 
I know that this is the same undiminished gospel of Christ 
that it was in the days of Peter, Paul, the early Fathers 
and the succeeding saints, when the Church of Christ grew 
and flourished in irresistible energy and efficacy. Why, then, 
do we now hear the lamentation almost everywhere, “ This 
is Zion, whom no man seeketh ” ? Is it because the Church 
has lost touch with the masses, and in pride is saying of 
herself, “ I am rich and increased with goods, and have need 
of nothing”? Is it because her ministers, the ambassadors 
of Christ, “teach for hire, and the prophets divine for money” ? 
Have they, indeed, lost the gifts of their consecration, and 
know naught of the Spirit of the Lord, which, in himself, 
constrained “ the common people ” to hear him gladly, and 
“ then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for 
to hear him ” ? 

These things should not be, and must not long continue. 
They are an hourly humiliation and a daily apostasy. May 
God purge us, purify us, illumine us, and bestow upon us 
again the full energies of the Holy Ghost! May Christ so 
once more love his Church that he will “sanctify and 
cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word,” and 
“ present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, 
or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and 
without blemish ! ” 

One thought more, and I cease to tax your patience and 
indulgence. 

If I should be asked what judgment comes to me from the 
contemplation of these things, I answer unhesitatingly, 
“They are the results of that apparently general abandon¬ 
ment of Christian principles which in all ages have formed 
the warp and woof of true moral character, or been the ver¬ 
tebrae of the spinal column of all honorable and enduring 
national life. The truth of Christ is not the touchstone of 
our modern methods in the vital departments of individual 
or public economy. The expedient has usurped the author¬ 
ity of the eternal; and we are drifting as “ derelicts ” on the 
tides of materialism, rather than steering by a divine chart, 
with a divine Pilot, ever steadily and onward toward the 


19 


immutable and immortal. We need a renaissance of ancient 
faith — a new era of martyrdom for the sake of Christ — a 
new “baptism of blood and fire and the Holy Ghost!” 
Until these shall come, we shall grope aimlessly, in impotence 
of power, and imminence of peril. Let us, in earnest peni¬ 
tence and with eternal purpose, “ stand in the ways, and see, 
and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk 
therein,” and “ find rest for our souls ! ” 

Then, and then only, can we hope to enjoy “times of 
refreshing from the presence of the Lord,” and come up to 
the joyful experience of his kingdom come on earth. In 
that glad day of promise we shall see our sons shod with the 
preparation of the Gospel, girt about the loins with Truth, 
wearing the breastplate of Righteousness, advancing the 
shield of Faith, bearing upon their manly, sunlit brows the 
helmet of Salvation, and waving aloft in victory the sword of 
the Spirit, which is the Word of God. 

We shall have daughters, also, who shall be sandalled with 
Peace and Patience, whose forms shall be covered with gar¬ 
ments of Innocence, on which, in letters of silver and gold, 
shall be embroidered the record of their good deeds. They 
shall be strengthened with the golden girdle of Prayer. 
From their beautiful shoulders will droop the cloak of Humil-. 
ity, from out which their hands will be extended to scatter 
the golden gifts of Charity upon the one side, and the sooth¬ 
ing solaces of Mercy upon the other. Their throats will be 
encircled with the pearls of Precious Thoughts ; their lips 
be sweet with prayers and thanksgiving ; while their eyes are 
turned with unfaltering trust to catch the first glintings of 
that crown of Eternal Life which is promised to every pure 
soul on earth. 

And these two shall go forth to inherit and inhabit that 
Palace of Purity which rears its walls, and arches its dome, 
over every righteous life in this world. They will pass up to 
it over the broad white flagstones of Pure Desires, mount the 
grand stairway of Noble Purposes, go between the twin col¬ 
umns of Strength and Wisdom, and enter by the Gate Beau¬ 
tiful, over which is the legend in letters of gold, “ All that is 
pure may enter here ! ” 


20 


In the hallway of Sanctification they will lay aside the dust* 
stained garments of their earthly conflicts, put on the seam¬ 
less and spotless robe of Righteousness through loyalty to the 
Lord, and, upon entering the vast rotunda, will seat them¬ 
selves upon the thrones that garnish the dais in the East. 
From this exalted station they may look out upon the ideal¬ 
ized tableaus of their beautiful lives. 

Here they will see Truth, a precious maiden, standing by 
her well of inexhaustible waters, drawing forth her libations, 
of sincerity, and pouring them out to run down and refresh 
and ennoble all the nations of the earth. 

Next to her is Faith, clinging to the Cross of Christ, rooted 
on the Rock of Ages ; while all the waves of worldliness and 
sin that beat and swirl in fury at its base cannot dampen the 
hem of her garment with their highest spray. 

Then is seen Virtue, standing with her hands folded across 
her placid bosom, her feet embedded in the riches of the 
cornucopia of Fortune upturned before her, and her hair 
blown about her head in a golden aureole by the breezes born 
in the far-away Hills of Happiness. 

Over there is Justice, poised upon the uppermost pole of 
the earth, holding aloft the balances of God, weighing out 
his judgments to men impartially, according to their words 
and works ; while over her head gather and glitter the constel¬ 
lations of the skies in the great edict of Jehovah, “ Fiat 
Justitia , ruat coelum ! ” 

There, too, is Charity, laden with her bounties, going 
through the highways and byways of the world, searching 
out the pariahs, the forlorn and forsaken, and ministering to 
them in the name of her Master, who himself “ went about 
doing good.” 

Next cometh Mercy, clad in humble garb, with meekness 
of mien, visiting the cell of the prisoner, the cottages of the 
poor, and kneeling by the bedsides of the disconsolate dying,, 
to whisper “glad tidings of great joy” into the dulling ears 
of death. 

And here is beheld the grand apostle of Temperance,— 
he who hath maintained his integrity as a man, preserved his 
body as the temple of the Holy Ghost, and now, a very giant 


21 


of good words and deeds, looks forward, and beckons his 
fellow-men to follow with him that high and holy way his 
Saviour trod, that leads the world to glory and to God. 

In the centre of the place stands the altar of worship, 
where their praise and their prayers turn into a holy incense 
that fills the whole place with a heavenly atmosphere. 

Up in the zenith of the great dome blazes the Sun of 
Righteousness, shedding “ the stainless radiance of eternity” 
over the whole glorified scene. 

Coming thither, and kneeling beside that altar, the eyes of 
their faith, strengthened like the young eaglet’s, look up and 
pierce the very centre of that Sun, and discover the trans¬ 
figured Cross of Calvary beckoning them to their eternal 
home. 

These, my beloved, are the Prince Christian and Princess 
Christiana of our homes in the days of the reign of right¬ 
eousness which shall come upon our renewed loyalty to 
Christ and consecration to the principles revealed to us in 
the regeneration and sanctification of our Christian faith. 
Amen, and Amen, and Amen ! 


•Second Day: Tuesday, June 7. 


Fiftieth Anniuersary. 

i. 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

BY PRESIDENT T. W. JORDAN, A.M. 

Gentlemen of the Alumni , Ladies and Gentlemen , — 

It is a pleasant duty my colleagues have assigned to me this 
morning, — that of greeting the children returning to their 
Alma Mater in the year of her jubilee. I hope, however, that 
the heartiness of the welcome will not be measured by the 
character of the speech. I think I am only put forward to 
skirmish a little for the heavier action that is to follow. 

We are glad to see so many of the former students on the 
grounds, and we would have been glad to see hundreds more. 
One of them asked me some time since, ‘‘What in the world 
would you do with us ? ” I told him an incident of an old- 
fashioned Methodist revival. The exhorter was calling sinners 
with great unction and power. Many were coming. He pic¬ 
tured the old ship of Zion in all her strength and beauty, and 
finally represented her as having all sail set, and the anchor 
about to be lifted. Just then an old lady in the back part of 
the church arose, and started down the aisle. She weighed 
about three hundred. Pitching his voice above the song and 
shout, he called out, “ Come on, sister! we’ll take you aboard 
if you sink the ship ! ” 

So many friendly faces are an encouragement and an inspi¬ 
ration to us. May we hope, too, that the re-union will be both 
pleasant and profitable to you ? It is good for all to stop 
occasionally in the midst of the clatter and noise of our mod¬ 
ern life, and come back to listen for the voices that charmed 
our boyhood. A visit to these quiet shades, while it will 
awaken tender memories, will not fail also to excite sober 

reflection. It seems only a few days since some of us were 
22 









































































































































































23 


romping in careless glee on the campus, or penning with 
anxious care our missives to the angels, or, “ gerentes spiritus 
exercituum magnomm ,” making these woods ring with prepa¬ 
ration for our forensic frays. 

Well, if we did not get angels , we got what was probably a 
good deal better suited to us ; and, if our guns carried more 
powder than shot, we may console ourselves with the reflec¬ 
tion that they were not the first of their kind, as, I am quite 
sure, they were not the last. From a little pamphlet of stu¬ 
dent-speeches circulating about here, I see that some of you 
were not smart enough to burn yours up. I would be dis¬ 
posed to exult over you to-day, but for one depressing circum¬ 
stance. Darius, it is said, kept a servant constantly at his 
side to remind him that he was mortal. I need nothing of 
the kind. Mrs. Jordan keeps a bundle of my old love-letters. 
She has other facilities for keeping me subdued, but none 
equal to that. 

But to-day, as we look into the faces of classmates and 
schoolfellows, the conviction is forcing itself upon us, that we 
have passed the line of boyhood. We are touching the merid¬ 
ian. The uncertainties that hung about our careers are dis¬ 
sipated. Our places are fixed. We are what we will be ; and, 
if we are going to do any thing, it must be in the line of the 
work which is now in our hands, and there is no time to lose. 

There are yet others older than we. More distinctly per¬ 
haps than ever, and with some surprise, these will read in 
each other’s faces, “ I am growing old.” A review of the 
dreams and ambitions of youth, and a reckoning as to what 
has become of them, will be good for them. And what of the 
boyish envies and grudges ? How the waves of the receding 
years have washed them out! Scarcely more insignificant 
will appear the follies of life in the light of eternity. 

Fifty years! 

“ Fifty times the rose has flowered and faded, 

Fifty times the golden harvest fallen, 

Since our queen assumed the globe — the sceptre. 

“ Fifty years of ever-broadening commerce ! 

Fifty years of ever-brightening science! 

Fifty years of ever-widening empire ! v 


24 


Not a long time, it seems, to the few remaining who wit¬ 
nessed the laying of the corner-stone, but full of eventful 
history. Long enough to have seen momentous changes in 
the social and political history ; long enough to have seen 
strange powers harnessed to the use of man; long enough to 
have seen the sons of Emory and Henry tested, —in the halls 
of legislation, in the peaceful walks of agriculture and com¬ 
merce, on the forum, at the bar, and beside the couch of 
suffering, in the class-room and the sacred desk, in the red 
glare of battle and the dun smoke rising from wrecked homes 
and blasted hopes. She has seen in her children the reason 
of her being. “ She sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows 
leave to be.” She has justified the faith, and vindicated the 
wisdom of her founders. 

She has seen and heard some things, too, which ought to 
be recalled to-day, not in criticism of others, but in justifica¬ 
tion of herself. She has seen the grasping eagerness of the 
people grow into a fierce demand for quicker and more showy 
methods of education. She has not failed to lift up her voice 
in protest. She has pointed to the kingdom of nature, and 
said, See! all valuable growth is slow and imperceptible. 
Noise and hurry and impatience for results belong to the 
kingdom of littleness. The mushroom springs up in a night, 
and the butterfly is born in a day ; but the chemical forces 
which build up forests, and uphold mountains, work slowly and 
silently. Evaporation takes up three billions of tons of water 
every minute, but it is neither seen nor heard ; and the higher 
you rise in the scale of being, the more certain does it become 
that “heaven is not attained at a bound.” No sleight-of-hand 
jugglery can exempt mind-building from the slow and imper¬ 
ceptible processes that obtain elsewhere. This temple rises 
slowly, stone by stone; and there is “ neither hammer nor axe 
nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it is building.” 
The kingdom of mind and heart and character is that king¬ 
dom of God which “ cometh not with observation.” And this 
article of her creed she to-day most steadfastly believes. 

She has not failed to hear also the clamor for a more prac¬ 
tical education, and much sneering at “ a mouldy curriculum.” 
She has persistently maintained that a man was a higher 


25 


consideration than a machine, and force of more importance 
than facts. Nor has she observed any lack on the part of 
her sons where what is called practical work was to be done. 
Wherever there have been schools to teach, papers to edit, 
farms to till, railroads to build, goods to sell, cases to plead, 
the sick healed, or the gospel preached, the sons of. Emory 
and Henry have answered to the roll-call. And [to Hon. 
John Goode] if they have now and then aspired to a good 
office when it was in sight, nobody but their opponents has 
had occasion to be sorry for it. But, most remarkable of all, 
she has seen the people take one of her men [Dr. Buchanan] 
out of that most “ mouldy ” of all chairs, Latin and Greek, to 
put him in charge of their Agricultural and Mechanical Col¬ 
lege; and another [Capt. Vawter] trained in this same out-of- 
date curriculum, to give them one example of a successful 
manual-labor school! And so the old lady, with pardonable 
complacency, makes reply as did the Spartan to the visitor 
who sneered at his bleak hills, and asked him what he grew 
there. “ Sir, we grow men.” 

One other thing: Founded in the conviction that the 
thoughts of God as uttered in nature, in history, and in the 
Word, accord throughout, she has heard in these fifty years 
some accredited disciples of science proclaiming irreconcilable 
conflicts. If that were so, the purpose of her life was thwarted. 
But she has all along confidently maintained that an assault 
upon the sacred citadel which enshrines the hopes of the 
world could be successful only when the guards were off duty. 
She has not feared any advance in any science; and when 
astronomy was unrolling the heavens until there seemed no 
place left for the Creator, she has stood ready to affirm, that, — 

“ Infinite lengths beyond the bounds, 

Where stars revolve their little rounds,” 

the eye of faith could see the eternal God keeping his sleep¬ 
less watch. And when geology was stretching out the time 
of the world until the mind was breaking down under the 
feeling that the Ancient of days would not concern himself 
with a creature so evanescent, she has heard this voice of 
old: “Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eter- 


2 6 


nity, ... I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also 
that is of a contrite and humble spirit .” 

She has rejoiced in the last days, to see the tide setting 
strongly the other way, and closes into the chapter of these 
fifty years the record of a foolish and futile effort to put 
asunder that which God hath joined together. And now, 
with quickened 'sense of her responsibility and her high mis¬ 
sion, she will continue to build high on this side and on that 
the pillars of science and literature, but only to bind them at 
the top with a triumphal arch for the King of kings and 
Lord of lords. 

In this high purpose she calls her children about her to day 
to give thanks for the past, and to take fresh courage for the 
future. With our greetings to those who are here, we give 
them to the winds to carry to the thousands who could not 
be present, but who look lovingly toward the.common mother 
in this hour of her rejoicing. The blessings of her God and 
theirs be upon them wherever they be! 

Nor would we forget in our welcome others who have hon¬ 
ored the jubilee with their presence and favor, — our friends 
and neighbors who have stood by us in many times of trial 
and need ; nor has any college in any land ever been blest 
with a purer or more peaceful community. This has not 
been the least of its attractions. It is also a matter of gen¬ 
eral and genuine rejoicing, that so many of our old teachers 
are with us. The endowment of Emory and Henry has been 
the character of her professors. Grateful hearts wait on eye 
or memory as the familiar faces are recalled this morning all 
over the land. How natural for us to say, “Mr. President” 
[Dr. Wiley presiding]. The frosts which have whitened the 
hair have had no power to chill the heart; and, while the 
mellow rays of the setting sun are softly shading that which 
seemed rough or harsh to the eyes of boyhood, they are. gild¬ 
ing with rare radiance that which seemed admirable from 
the beginning. The blessing of the hoary head found in the 
way of righteousness be upon you; and may the loving ven¬ 
eration of the boys continue to brighten the pathway of 
declining years! 

With peculiar pride and gratification we welcome among 



























































































































% 


27 


us the distinguished son and governor of the Old Dominion, 
Gen. Fitzhugh Lee. His brilliant career and the dignity of 
his high position give great value to his presence and 
approval. It is not inappropriate that the splendor of the 
great name should be loaned to grace an academic celebra¬ 
tion ; for when the knightliest captain among the sons of men 
gave back to his people a broken but unstained sword, he 
found his highest duty and purest joy in training the minds, 
and moulding the characters, of the young. 

In conclusion, to one, to all, a hearty welcome ! The log¬ 
book has measured off fifty years. The old ship trims her 
sails, and heads away for the next fifty. May the hand of 
the great Pilot direct her voyage ! 

“Sail on, proud ship ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o’er our fears, 

Are all with thee — are all with thee.” 


II. 

SEMI-CENTENNIAL POEM. 

BY REV. T. A. S. ADAMS, D.D., JACKSON, LA. 

Once again propitious Heaven drops a blessing on our way, 

As our Alma Mater greets us on her fiftieth natal day; 

As with locks of brown and snowy mingling in the festive hall, 

Young with old, the lights and shadows of the past we here recall. 

Here where every link is golden of the wondrous woven chain, 

May the happy sons and mother cheat sad memory of its pain, 

And the broken cords retying in the bay of future years, 

Find the living for the dying, bringing laughter for our tears ! 

May we here the sunlight gather which through tempest cloud has strayed, 
Close to nestle in the cranny where our books to rest we laid; 

Whence the prophet of our sorrows many a cheerful lesson drew, 

And o’er gloomiest foreboding golden light of promise threw ! 

Here, when the Recording Angel reads the last name on the roll, 

Let the light beam in forever on each tempest-driven soul; 

As returning to the fountain, may we stoop and drink as when 
Alma Mater sent us hopeful out among the sons of men; 

Mere, though aged and sorrow-laden, rear Sans-Souci's halls of peace, 
And await the Angel coming with the message of release. 



2 8 


Come, O youth of brow unwrinkled, face unscarred, and eye undimmed, 
Thou that seest in the future blackest clouds with beauty rimmed! 
Come, although the sons of Anak on the mountain-sides await, 

And the rainbow of the morning travails with the storms of Fate ; 
Come, ye strong, ere in the scabbard eats with rust your trusty blade, 
And the laurel and the oaken crown shall on your temples fade; 

Come, thou halt and weary pilgrim, who at nightfall wouldst alone 
Rest thee ’neath some ruined pillar, with thy head upon a stone ; 

Come, and on the mother’s bosom rest and dream of youth and day 
That are beaming on the spirit from the hilltops far away. 

For the ladder of the angels and the bright eternal throne 
Dim not on the eye that closes peaceful when life’s day is done. 

Mother, bring we aught as presents ? have we treasures rich and rare, 
Though to us as dirt and rubbish till thou in the pleasure share ? 

For the Argonauts have wandered over many a Colchian strand, 

But the strongest and the boldest find no more their native land ; 

Some the golden fleece have captured, but the wild Symplegades 
Caught the craft, and Jason swallowed up forever in the seas. 

Once thy sons went forth to battle, hopeful, numerous, and strong, 

Met the foe, and with him grappled, — grappled desperately, long, 

Till the band, as snow in springtime, melted, — tattered, weak, and few, 
Pressed by ever-growing numbers, from the battle-field withdrew. 

Had the Spartan son returning brought the armor of the foe, 

Proudly hadst thou hung the trophy where his head is hanging low: 

But a corse was all he brought thee, stretched upon a battered shield; 
And the foe was in the temples, and the wolf was in the field. 

But the widowed mother wailed not, paled not, quailed not as she stood 
Gazing on the wounds still oozing with her son’s heroic blood; 

For the wounds were caught advancing, and the steady, glowing eye 
Saw but two things worth his manhood, — noble death or victory. 

Beauty Stuart ! such they called him ere the beard was on his chin, 

But a more than beauty crowned him in the thickest battle din. 

Thine and ours was he when playing on these meadows, in these halls, 
Doubly thine and ours when riding through the storm of leaden balls. 

All the Southland claims his ashes and the glory of his name, 

But our mother owns and loves him as her “ Beauty ” all the same ; 

For she cares not for the herald, loves not throated fame. 

All her sons came not to honor, but in graves unmarked are laid, — 

Some whose deeds were as heroic, though less seen the part they 
played: 

Such was Vawter, such were Hampton, Beatie, Compton, Jones, and Dold, 
And a hundred others over whom the tide of battle rolled. 

And when slow the sulphur war-cloud from the carnage cleared away, 
Mournful comrades answered roll-call, — never more on earth did they ; 
Yet who knows if now above us these may not these scenes attend, 

And are conscious of our memory of their brave life and their end ? 


29 


Who would listen, might their voices recognize in tones so clear, 

That the living he would slight, and to the spirit bend his ear. 

“ Bravely, brother, do thy duty ; love thy mother ; stay her hand; 

Help her scatter flowers and sunshine in the homes of all the land. 

Weep the fallen, but the hero only for his duty done 

Claims remembrance of his brother as his Alma Mater’s son. 

Love us yet with an affection strengthening with the flight of years, 

For the love of fruit immortal grows but in the land of tears. 

But the tears are not forever; though in hope’s reviving ray, 

They shall brighten into jewels, and in rainbows fly away. 

Boldly, brother, do thy duty, —duty ’tis with all to be 
Tender as the nurse that watches o’er the dying ; kind as he, 

Who, the absinthian potion drinking, saved his friend its bitter taste, 
And with blood the palm-tree watered for the hungry on life’s waste. 
When the angel of the whirlwind, or the earthquake, or the fire, 

Waits upon thee with his chariot, and the message, ‘ Come up higher,’ 
Ready then to meet the summons, of our presence sure remain ; 

And no comrade need bewail us, for we did not die in vain.” 

Here we shed no tears of sorrow, breathe for none a wish of ill, 

Though we fight our battles over, as all hoary soldiers will; 

See no ghost of warning blessing changing to a coming curse, 

Nor bewail departed virtue, and the wicked growing worse, 

But, above misfortune’s shadows, see the golden light come down, 

Till defeat the palm of victory and the royal robe puts on. 

Out of evil days the dawning of Millennium behold, 

Where immortal youth is kissing out the wrinkles of the old. 

Here we rest upon the gravestone of a half a century, 

Well assured that o’er our shadows brighter lights the next shall see ; 
For our fathers followed omens glimmering along the way, 

And their deeds were as the dawning of the slow-approaching day. 

Now their prophets are the mile-posts, marking distance journeyed o’er. 
We are riding where they crawled ; and where they clambered, now we 
soar. 

They through darkness heard a calling, we through daylight see the man; 
They in agony of spirit prayed, but we to help him ran; 

They had painted their Aladdin as a myth of which to jest; 

We have swung his blazing lantern over sea and mountain crest; 

They through starlight groped and struggled, often wandering from the 
way; 

We in daylight enter, seeing more than they could dare to pray; 

They the giants fought and vanquished, then in vague, uncertain fear, 
Trembled lest the skies should topple on their heads devoted here. 

So they died, and we succeed them, but no giants come again ; 

And we now make hymns, ascribing praise to God for giants slain : 

And we fear no more returning, though the lion’s cubs may roar; 

God has promised, man has voted, giants shall return no more. 


30 


Gone the brave, but comes a braver, and of more abiding grace; 

Fallen is the forest-monarch, but a barn is in its place. 

We have lost the soaring eagle, but the goose is come to stay ; 

Heard no more the panther’s screaming, but we have the bark of Tray. 
Half a hundred years of progress may have thinned heroic blood, 

And there may be cringing Levites where the fearless Anak stood. 

We may never see the manna as the hoar-frost strew the plain, 

But we like the harvest better, and the patter of the rain. 

Morning’s air no more may echo with the alarum loud of war, 

But ’tis better with the rattle of the ploughshare and the car; 

For the smoking, wailing city, with its mingled crash and groans, 

Has no music like the humming of the mill’s revolving stones. 

Herald’s horn no more may thrill us, but the baby’s noisy pipe 
Tells of home where happy mother has no brow of death to wipe. 

And the Muse of Peace is singing, “ It is better in the years 
O’er the hilltops of the ages where the Prince of Peace appears.” 

And we can not, and we will not, say that Hope or Heaven lies, 

And the Angel of the Covenant shuts the gates of Paradise ; 

And we can not, and we will not, with the bard of Locksley, fly 
To the tiger-haunted jungle, in a fit of dumps to die. 

Fool in loving, fool in hating, senseless fixedness or change, 

Fleeing spirit in the Protean shapes that wide in matter range. 

Frothy madman, whether passion take the form of good or ill, 

Lashing into maledictions, or to blessings madder still; 

Bitter in his disappointment, still more bitter in success ; 

Love and hate with wormwood flavored, kills to curse, and damns to 
bless. 

We who loved not for the winning, and who hated not for loss, 

Sought the treasure pure of heaven, free of poison and of dross. 

And as boys our mother leaving, tearful kisses back we threw, 

But the heart that sent the message could not utter its adieu. 

For the lover, loving ever, bade the clock of Time tick on, 

But its latest stroke should never on forgotten love look down, 

Though the afternoon of ages into midnight might descend, 

Stars of heaven clad in blackness rush in darkness to their end; 

But, beyond the bridgeless river, Hope to Love would ope the door, 
When the skies were hung in mourning for the worlds that are no 
more. 

Once the bard of Locksley touched his harp in bolder, brighter strain, 
And his manhood rose like Samson, dashed to earth the slavish chain, 
Spurned the craven thought of wooing only for the gold or spite, 

As he sang the line heroic, worthy capitals of light, — 

“ Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay ! ” 

But we echo, “Tenfold better, twenty of America.” 

Good through Europe’s fanes to wander, read her story, see her art, 
Watch in her vast, seething masses the pulsations of her heart; 


3i 


Loose from some lone castle-window, Fancy, like a dove, to find 
Resting-place for foot and pinion ’mid the dead world of our kind; 
Range the land in plumes and armor on the old knight-errant steed, 
Trained o’er human breasts to trample, and on human follies feed; 

Bow at shrines of saints and martyrs ; inspiration seek and find, 

And from lips that kissed the altar learn the songs that freed mankind. 
Ah ! then, let us traverse Europe, not as snob, nor man of state, 

Not as tramp, or showman playing for the penny in the plate; 

Not to hob-a-nob with rascals, nor to snub th z parvenu, 

But to use our sight and hearing catching up the tried and true, 

Sifting, winnowing, and peeling off the tinsel and the paint, 

Till we find the real noble, and the thinker, and the saint; 

For the common and plebeian, born of Nature, made of clay, 

Are historic things of Europe, now forever laid away. 

Every rook there owns a turret; every owl his castle claims ; 

Every jackdaw is connected with a list of noble names ; 

Every gypsy king-descended ; every pauper is a count; 

Every bat has come from fathers cradled on the Aonian Mount; 

Every glen and plain and mountain, every river, brook, and sea, 

Rings and sparkles with the tinkling tinsel of the used-to-be. 

Ancient, new, the heaven-descended and the hell-born, side by side, 
Mingling, rushing on together constitute the mighty tide 
Flowing seaward, spreading landward o’er the present, till the day 
Happy Europe, hapless Europe, saintly, bestial, doleful, gay, 

Finds its level, upward, downward, and its limits outward meets, 

And its sparrows cleave the ether, and its eagles walk its streets : 

Yet when this shall be accomplished, still devoutly let us say, — 

“ Better fifty years so hybrid, than a cycle of Cathay! ” 

Better streak the black with glimmers, though they never lead the light 
Into day’s broad, universal, happy, glowing reign of light, 

Than to wrap the hood of midnight round the vision, fold on fold, 

Till the very blackness shudders its own shadow to behold. 

But where tyrant ne’er has lorded o’er the sons of liberty, 

Here, where every dewdrop sparkles in the sunshine of the free, 

Were it but to come to being, — breathe one breath, and pass away,— 
Better take the gasp of freedom, than in Europe growing gray; 

For ’tis not the longest living, nor the most we live to see, 

Makes the life most worth the living, but the real self to be. 

Lo ! for ages may be floating in yon azure fields of space, 

Worlds that never shined, and never flashed, and hurried out of place : 
Angels may have weary passed them, but they never rested there ; 

For the silence and the darkness chained the light and rippling air : 
But a meteor gleams a moment, and in darkness shoots again, 

And a million eyes are flashing with the splendor of its train. 

Thus, a lumpish life extending o’er a thousand sunless years, 

Is not worth the flashing meteor, scarce seen ere it disappears. 


32 


Thus, ’tis better born an infant, with a mind and heart aglow 
With some heavenly inspiration of bright freedom here below, 

Than in darkness vanish, hiding in perpetual eclipse, 

And be mourned by kindred spirits with a seal upon their lips. 

Better, infinitely better, were it to be born at all, 

Than outlive Methuselah in sin-bedraggled Locksley Hall. 

Lords of lust are in the palace, kennelled mastiffs in the court; 

And the virtue of the masses is the staple of their sport. 

Chimes of bells in vain a welcome ring to the glad day of rest, 

And Bastiles have doors that open only to the coming guest. 

Cottages along the hillside wear in vain the air of home, 

For across the threshold never doth the step of freeman come. 

Vineyards blue with grapes may greet us, but the winepress there is trod 
Only by the foot of marred and blotted images of God ; 

Yet, amid this awful picture lines of beauty still are traced 
Such that we would linger, hoping restoration of this waste : 

And we know the Briton shuddered at the linking of his fate 
With the proudest Brahmin’s daughter in barbaric gold and state. 

’Twas the shudder of his manhood calling him to lead the van 
In the movement of the ages whose undoubted heir is man. 

Still, ’tis better that to Europe we should never more return, 

Nor in Locksley tarry till we Locksley’s ways of loving learn. 

We have sweeter bowers, whose blossoms emulate the maiden’s blush 
When the birdie tells her birdlings they must shut their eyes and hush. 
We have zephyrs that have whispered only angel loves at eve, 

When the dewdrop settled on the weblets which the spiders weave. 

We have evening clouds whose crimson shades so softly into blue, 

That one knows not whether cloud or sky it is that changes hue. 

Skies and landscapes, lakes and torrents, forests, prairies, mountains, seas, 
God has made of largest pattern, and of finest charm to please. 

’Mid such scenes our youths and maidens see the future’s Eden ope, 
Where no cherub stands a sentry, shutting out return or hope ; 

But the wide world opens wider, broader spreads life’s blooming tree, 
And, when under it, the poorest stands erect, a man, and free. 

Freedom! emanation from the deeps cerulean afar, 

Born when angels rested on thy bright and glorious star ; 

Some one from a grated window may have strained his eager eyes 
As he watched at midnight coming thy fair omen in the skies. 

From some hovel whence at midnight rose the almost hopeless prayer, 
Stepped the slave, and, looking upward, heard the music in the air; 

And he shouted till the echoes in the halls of tyrants broke, 

And the sleepers from their nightmare to a morn of glory woke; 

And they shouted till the echoes shook the sky from pole to pole, 

Till the groanings and sighings changed to sweetest anthems of the soul: 
Then, when ceased the hallelujah which had through the nations rung, 

In America the chorus mothers at the cradle sung ; 


33 


From the mountain cone they floated on the rivers to the sea, 

Singing in the brooklet’s gurgle, and Niagara’s boom the free — 

From the crack and clash of icebergs on far Oonalaska’s shore, 

To the softest sob Palatka gives back to the ocean roar; 

Screaming eagle, chirping sparrow, solitary whippoorwill, 

Morning, mid-day, eve, and midnight chant the songs of freedom still; 
Sorrow’s wail and victory’s paean, cooing childhood, sighing age, 

Parts of wide creation’s chorus in the inspiring song engage : 

And the prophet bids his people to their happy homes repair, 

Serve their God, and love their country, for the tyrant comes not there. 
But that Freedom prove a blessing, Science should her province hold, 
To the freest mind most freely ways of a free God unfold, 

How that all the wondrous fabric of creation needs must be 
Governed by a law unchanging, even that it may be free ; 

How that law is life, whose organs are of changing matter made, 

And the law goes on forever though the organ be decayed ; 

How that life is love, whose mission is to join, but not confine, 

Forces that must work together the Creator’s wise design,— 

Forces that in one may gather every beam of every sun, 

And with infinite effulgence let them flash as out of one — 

Out of one that may have wandered into fogs of utter night, 

But to new life gladly wakens through the open door of light. 

Let Religion welcome Freedom, let them both to Science give 
Happy welcome ! O fair sisters, may ye now together live ! 

Blessed Trinity ! if Heaven for my good have sent you here, 

Come and bless our Alma Mater ; let the time and place appear 
When Barbarian, Scythian, Roman, poor, unlearned, rich, and wise, 
Shall as brothers dwell together, cease each other to despise ; 

Find the way of life so broadened, that along it all may tread, 

With eternal truth beneath them and eternal God o’erhead; 

Memory growing green behind them till the dead of all the Past 
Send eternal hope before them, lighting Future’s mighty waste; 

With warm Gratitude abiding through the winter of the years ; 

Till Obedience, working, waiting, at Eternal Throne appears, — 

Till amid the shout of welcome which throughout all worlds shall ring, 
Man the pilgrim, man the toiler, enters over all, the king ! 

Comrades, brothers, youthful, hoary, let our hands again unite, 

Let the present, past, and future glow alike in living light. 

Nothing dies but forms and shadows : echoes come not from the tomb. 
Naught unborn — we need no prophet to dispel the future’s gloom. 

God, who laps the generations one o’er other evermore, 

Makes a bridge, whose piers and stringers reach the everlasting shore. 
Even now to-morrow’s chances are as sure as yesterday’s, 

Even now its hilltops more inviting than the haze 

Seen where yesterday we panted, waiting for the rosy light 

Of this morning as it struggled from the clutches of the night. 


34 


God, who laps the generations one o’er other evermore, 

Brings them nearer to perfection each o’er that which went before. 

But the old is ever twisted with the new so nicely drawn, 

That we know not where to say, “ The new is come, the old is gone.” 
Yet as grows the thread unending, back o’er all its length will flow 
Life’s electric current, till creation only life shall know; 

For the day that dawns eternal on the man who never died, 

From his graves shall summon Abel, and array them side by side. 
Hand in hand the protomartyr and the latest of his race, 

Shall receive the same life current through the same unbounded grace. 
Brothers, we are losing nothing, though so fast down stream we glide : 
We have better hold on better things upon the other side. 

Are we in a vale of shadows ? Mountains high above us rise. 

Have the mists been left below us ? Still above us are the skies. 

Do we heave a sigh at parting ? We’ll be gladder, then, to meet, 
When the pilgrimage is over, at the Blessed Master’s feet, 

Where the memory of mother, brothers, friends, companions true, 
Shall return to blest fruition, overflowing, ever new ; 

And the fruit shall ever ripen ’mid the blossoms of that Tree, 

Which, on Time’s small island planted, spreads o’er all eternity. 


III. 

ADDRESS BEFORE THE ALUMNI. 

BY HON. JOHN GOODE, LL.D., OF NORFOLK, VA. 

Gentlemen of the Society of Alumni ,— 

We have come together on this, the occasion of the semi¬ 
centennial celebration of the organization of the college, to 
revisit the familiar scenes of earlier and happier days, to 
renew the pleasing associations of the past, and to lay our 
tribute of filial affection at the feet of our beloved Alma 
Mater. As we stand here to-day, what happy memories 
come trooping up from the past! Who of us is there that 
does not gratefully remember the kind and parental care and 
instruction which we uniformly received from the honored 
members of the faculty ? Who of us is there with soul so 
dead that he has become indifferent to the prosperity and 
success of this noble Foster Mother as she has moved for¬ 
ward upon her high career of usefulness and honor? Who 
of us is there that can recall without emotion the youthful 




I 



















































































































































































































































































































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35 


friendships which were formed here, and which have re¬ 
mained unshaken as the years have passed away ? But, alas ! 
while it is our privilege to recall the happy memories of our 
collegiate career, there are others full of sadness which will 
not down at our bidding. There are some of us assembled 
here who cannot fail to remember certain events which have 
taken place since we went forth from these halls in all the 
buoyancy and with all the freshness and enthusiasm of youth, 
to enter upon our career, and to commence the battle of life. 

The old college building still sits calmly and serenely upon 
the brow of the hill. The society halls, around which our 
heartstrings are intwined, still resound with the eloquence of 
youthful gladiators in debate. The lovely valley, on whose 
greensward we once practised our boyish sports, is still here. 
The beautiful blue mountains, from which our youthful ima¬ 
ginations drew their inspiration, still stand as sentinels, and 
still lift their summits toward the sky. Yet some of us who 
have come back after the lapse of many years, find it difficult 
to repress the secret sigh as we miss familiar faces, and hear 
the echoes of voices which are hushed forever in death, and 
will speak no more upon earth. But it is not my province 
on this occasion, to indulge in mournful reminiscences. We 
must look to the present and the future, and nof to the past. 
In selecting a subject upon which to address you, it has 
occurred to me, that perhaps the best service I can render 
will be to impress, if I can, upon the minds of the young 
gentlemen who are about to be enrolled as members of the 
alumni association, a correct idea of the advantages which 
they enjoy, of the opportunities afforded to them, and of the 
responsibilities which they are about to incur. So far as the 
older members of our association are concerned, their avoca¬ 
tion has been fixed. I propose to address myself to the 
younger members, who are about to go forth from this 
college to fulfil their destiny in life. It has been your ex¬ 
alted privilege, gentlemen, to receive instruction from a 
faculty distinguished for its learning, ability, and fidelity. 
You are the highly favored students of a noble institution, 
which has accomplished a great work in the sacred cause of 
education. Your collegiate life has been spent amid scenes 


36 


which are fragrant with precious and hallowed memories. 
You have been permitted to lay the foundations of your 
future career upon the soil of a renowned Commonwealth 
which has been the prolific mother of patriots, heroes, and 
statesmen. Whatever may be said of the present or the 
future of the “ Old Dominion,” her past at least is secure. 
The unfading civic wreath has, by the universal verdict of 
mankind, been placed upon her venerable brow ; and the 
fame of her great names will endure as long as her ever¬ 
lasting hills shall stand. Again, gentlemen, you have been 
called to live in an extraordinary period of the world’s 
history. 

Daniel Webster said he had lived longer than Methuselah, 
because he- had seen more than Methuselah ever saw. What 
would he have said if he had lived in your day ? Nations 
are contending with nations in exploring the fields and add¬ 
ing new discoveries in the realms of science. The fire, the 
tumult, the energy, of an intense action are all around you. 
Laws of nature, which have been hidden mysteries since the 
morning of creation, have become the daily servants of man. 
He has been enabled to invent the means by which he may 
steer his course with unerring certainty across the pathless 
deep, survey other worlds lying beyond the range of human 
vision, and measure their magnitude with the greatest accu¬ 
racy and precision. He determines the probabilities of the 
winds and the rains, “signals the coming storm, tells in ad¬ 
vance where the hurricane will strike,” and gives notice of 
its approaching fury. The elements themselves have been 
rendered subservient and submissive to his will. Steam has 
been converted into a beast of burden ; and the whistle of the 
engine and the rattle of the railway-car are now heard in 
broad prairies and magnificent forests, where, a short time 
since, the silence of primeval solitude reigned. Here upon 
our own continent, all is bustle and activity and commotion. 
The American people, with aspirations unsatisfied by the toil 
and achievement which have marked their career, are still 
pushing their conquests with an irresistible energy, still vex¬ 
ing sea and land with their busy industry. They are still 
moving forward in developing the soil, exploring the mines, 


37 


building railroads, constructing telegraphs and telephones, 
bridging the rivers, felling the forests, tunnelling the moun¬ 
tains, and connecting the two oceans by iron bands across 
the continent. 

But, gentlemen, if it be a privilege to be permitted to live 
in an age like this, what shall I say of the rich inheritance 
you enjoy as citizens of these United States ? A beneficent 
Providence has lavished upon our country advantages such 
as are possessed by none other upon the habitable globe. It 
is equalled by none in undeveloped treasures of soil and mine 
and forest and river, which only await the touch of skilled 
industry to start into imperial wealth and power. By the 
blessing of Almighty God, we have grown from three millions 
to sixty millions of population ; from thirteen weak and de¬ 
pendent colonies to thirty-eight free, powerful, and prosperous 
States. It is no vainglorious boast, to say that our country 
stands pre-eminent among the nations of the earth for the 
immense increase of its population, the vast expansion of its 
territory, the countless productions of its industry, the meas¬ 
ureless aggregate of its crops, and the marvellous prosperity 
of its people. And when we contemplate the structure of 
our Government, we are filled with admiration for the saga¬ 
city and the wisdom of the patriot fathers who conceived and 
planned it. Its object is the protection of the rights of the 
governed. It derives its just powers from the consent of the 
governed. Its organization is the work of the people, and its 
officers are the agents appointed by the people to execute 
their will. It was framed in accordance with the fundamental 
idea formulated by Mr. Jefferson, in that immortal document, 
which declared that “All men are created equal; that they 
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; 
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi¬ 
ness ; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed; that whenever any form of government be¬ 
comes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people 
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government.” 
Under our system, the powers of the Government are well 
defined and limited by the Constitution which created it. 


38 


The Government can exercise no power not delegated by 
that instrument or necessarily implied. The powers not 
delegated are reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
people. Under our system of government, the law is the 
supreme power in the land. Chief Justice Marshall said on 
a celebrated occasion, that “The Government of the United 
States is emphatically a government of laws, and not of men.” 
And in a recent case decided by the Supreme Court, Mr. 
Justice Miller uttered words which deserve to be engraved 
upon the heart and the memory of every citizen, when he 
said, “ No man in this country is so high that he is above 
the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance 
with impunity. All the officers of the Government, from the 
highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound 
to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of 
government.” Such, gentlemen, is the character of the age 
in which you live. Such are the advantages of the country 
in which you dwell, and such are the institutions which by 
the providence of God you are permitted to enjoy. And now 
the question arises, What will you do with these splendid 
opportunities, and what use do you intend to make of them ? 
The time is not distant when you will go forth from these 
halls, around which so many hallowed memories and so many 
pleasing associations cluster. You will go with the blessing 
of your Alma Mater upon your heads, to encounter stern 
realities, and to fulfil your mission in life. The future with 
its great possibilities lies spread out before you, and the prob¬ 
lem of life is to be solved by each one of you. You must 
make up your minds that you will do something, and you 
must resolve that by God’s help you will do it well. You 
may rest assured that nothing will be accomplished without 
singleness of aim and purpose, or without labor, — constant, 
persevering, unceasing labor. If you have the gift of appli¬ 
cation, it will be worth more to you than genius. Are you 
moved by an honorable ambition to be recognized as leaders 
in your day and generation ? Why not ? In a country like 
ours, and under institutions such as we enjoy, every man has 
the right to aspire to leadership in that state of life to which 
it has pleased God to call him. The world in every age has 


39 


had its representatives, who by reason of their superior 
genius, character, and attainments, have been recognized as 
leaders of men, and moulders of their thoughts and actions. 
There have been leaders in every department of life, and in 
every avocation of mankind. There have been leaders in war r 
and leaders in peace, leaders in the pulpit, leaders at the bar, 
leaders in the medical profession, leaders in journalism, lead¬ 
ers in the professor’s chair, leaders in the field of invention 
and discovery, leaders in the arts and sciences, leaders in 
statesmanship, leaders in agriculture, commerce, mining, and 
manufactures. Some men seem to be born leaders, and some 
are made leaders by circumstances ; but it is nevertheless 
true, that, under our beneficent institutions, every man may 
be, to some extent at least, the architect of his own fortunes. 
The ladder by which you ascend the steep, “ where fame’s 
proud temple shines afar,” may be hard to climb, but there 
is always room enough at the top. 

In selecting your avocation in life, it will be safe, as a 
general rule, to follow the bent of your inclination. That 
may be accepted, I think, as an indication of Providence. 
If any of you should feel that you are moved by the Holy 
Spirit to enter the sacred ministry, and to preach the gospel 
of Christ, be assured there is no office involving such grave 
responsibilities, and none so pre-eminently worthy of all the 
highest energies of your nature and all the noblest powers of 
your souls. 

If any of you should prefer to adopt the avocation of the 
teacher, and aspire to fill the chair of the professor, you may 
take courage from the reflection that there is no occupation 
more honorable, and none that opens a wider field for 
extended usefulness and high distinction. 

If any of you should desire to become journalists, remem¬ 
ber that there is no more potent factor than a free and 
untrammelled press in moulding public opinion, and directing 
the thoughts and actions of your fellow-men. The great 
republican poet of England, whose, genius has received the 
homage of two hemispheres, the masterpiece of whose prose¬ 
writing is said by the critics to be his defence of the liberty of 
unlicensed printing, exclaims in that noble performance, “ Give 


40 


me to know, to utter and to argue freely according to con¬ 
science above all liberties.” Sheridan declared himself in a 
similar manner : “ Give me,” said the great orator and drama¬ 
tist, “ give me but the liberty of the press, and I will give the 
minister a venal House of Peers. I will give him a corrupt 
and servile House of Commons. I will give him the full sway 
of the patronage of office. I will give him the whole host of 
ministerial influence. I will give him all the power that 
place can confer upon him to purchase up submission, and 
over-awe resistance ; and yet, armed with the liberty of the 
press, I will go to meet him undismayed. I will attack the 
mighty fabric he has reared with that mightier engine. I 
will strike down corruption from its height, and bury it amid 
the ruins of the abuses it was meant to shelter.” Napoleon, 
the greatest of all in practical affairs, said in his own terse 
and vigorous manner, “ A journal is a giver of advice, a 
regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile news¬ 
papers are more to be dreaded than a hundred thousand 
bayonets.” Here, then, is a group of illustrious names, all 
bearing testimony to the power of the press. In a country 
like ours, and under a government like ours, it would be 
impossible to over-estimate that power; but I trust that the 
press may retain its power only so long as it is independent 
and pure and upright in the doctrines it teaches and the 
lessons it inculcates. 

If any of you should determine to enter the medical pro¬ 
fession, and devote yourselves to the healing art, be assured 
that a wide field of useful and honorable endeavor lies spread 
out before you. It may be that you will not attract so much 
of the public attention as the eloquent advocate who stands 
in the forum, and pleads the cause of injured innocence, or 
exposes fraud, falsehood, and wrong with biting sarcasm and 
withering invective ; but along the private walks of life, and 
around the family fireside, your influence will be potent for 
good ; and the poor sufferer languishing in a sick-chamber will 
recognize in the familiar sound of your footstep the approach 
of one who is able to comfort and relieve, if not to save. 
When called upon to go in and out among the dying, where 
“the pestilence walketh in darkness, and destruction wasteth 


4 


41 

at noonday,” you will have need of a courage more lofty, and 
a heroism more devoted, than ever nerved the arm, or 
animated the breast, of the soldier in the supreme moment 
of battle. 

“ There is something of pride in the perilous hour, 

Whate’er be the form in which death may lower ; 

For fame is there to tell who bleeds, 

And honor’s eye is on daring deeds.” 

But when the faithful and conscientious physician moves in 
the midst of the pestilence, he is not sustained by the touch 
of the elbow, or cheered by the shout of the multitude ; and 
yet he would willingly die before he would retreat from the 
post of duty and of danger. 

If any of you should prefer to enter the legal profession, be 
assured that it will require the dedication of all your time and 
all your talents. Sir William Blackstone has said that “the 
law is a science which distinguishes the criterions of right 
and wrong; which teaches to establish the one, and prevent, 
punish, or redress the other; which employs in its theory the 
noblest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the car¬ 
dinal virtues of the heart, — a science which is universal in 
its use and extent, accommodated to each individual, yet 
comprehending the whole community.” Lord Erskine said 
that “more instructive lessons are sometimes taught in courts 
of justice than even the Church is able to inculcate. Morals 
come in the cold abstract from pulpits, but men smart under 
them practically when we lawyers are the preachers;” and 
the immortal Hooker, in his tribute to the law, has sublimely 
said, “ Her seat is the bosom of God ; her voice, the harmony 
of the Universe. All things in heaven and in earth do her 
homage, — the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest 
as not exempt from her power.” Surely, gentlemen, it is no 
mean distinction to be enrolled among her ministers, and to 
be permitted to officiate as priests at her altars. But the law 
is a jealous mistress, and will not be content with any half¬ 
hearted allegiance from her votaries. She will not permit you 
to sit down and fold yOur arms in ignoble and inglorious ease. 
You must enter the contests of the profession with stout 


42 


heart and resolute purpose, or be content to forfeit all its 
bright and magnificent rewards. What other profession can 
bestow greater rewards upon earnest effort and lofty endeavor ? 
What position is more enviable, or what reputation is more 
to be desired, than that of the leader of the bar in his State 
or circuit ? Go into the temple of justice, and see him offici¬ 
ate as its minister, and hear him as he expounds the law to 
the court, or champions the cause of the innocent, or denounces 
the heartless oppressor, the crafty trickster, the wanton calum¬ 
niator, with scorching satire and withering invective. As you 
listen to his luminous argument, or stand spellbound under 
the magical influence of his eloquence, you feel that “every 
god doth seem to set his seal upon him, to give the world 
assurance of a man.” Man has been endowed with no faculty 
which so pre-eminently distinguishes him as the faculty of 
speech. When highly cultivated and improved, what a tre¬ 
mendous power it exerts upon the destinies of mankind ! The 
fame of the eloquent advocate pervades the entire community. 
His eloquence at times is “more terrible than an army with 
banners.” Again, “ ’Tis musical as bright Apollo’s lute strung 
with his hair.” I repeat, gentlemen, there is no position more 
influential, no reputation more desirable or more enduring, 
than that of the able, learned, eloquent, and accomplished 
Christian lawyer. The names of such great lawyers as Choate 
and O’Connor, Binney and Black, Gibson and Pinckney, Taze¬ 
well and Wickham, Ruffin and Badger, Benjamin and Prentiss, 
will live and shine as bright as the eternal stars long after the 
evanescent fame of the mere political orator has passed away, 
and been forgotten forever. There is no better preparation 
for the career of a statesman than the study and practice of 
the law. More than one-half of the presidents of the United 
States, and a large majority of our legislators, both State and 
National, have been lawyers. It is worthy of remark, also, 
that the members of the judiciary are selected exclusively 
from that class. No one of the three separate and inde¬ 
pendent departments of the Government has more delicate 
and difficult duties to perform than the judiciary. No office 
under our system of government is more honorable or respon¬ 
sible than that of judge, and none is held in greater esteem 


43 


and reverence by the people. As we walk through the grounds 
of our beautiful Capitol city of Washington, we find here and 
there, in every direction, statues and monuments erected by 
a grateful people to perpetuate the memory of distinguished 
soldiers and civilians who in their day and generation have 
added lustre to the American name. But when we turn our 
faces towards the Capitol, and begin to ascend the steps which 
lead to its halls, we behold the majestic figure of John Mar¬ 
shall, the illustrious Chief Justice of the United States. That 
figure has been recently placed there by the bar and the Con¬ 
gress of the United States to commemorate the virtues of a 
great and good man, the best model the world has ever known 
of the able, upright, incorruptible judge. There he sits, 
clothed with the judicial ermine, calm, serene, self-poised. 
His name will be held in grateful and affectionate remem¬ 
brance by the American people as long as their Constitution, 
of which he was the great expounder, shall endure. I com¬ 
mend to you the example of his life as one to be emulated by 
those who aspire to be leaders in that noble profession which 
was illustrated by his splendid genius, and adorned by his 
manly virtues. 

If there be any among you who cherish an ambition to be 
statesmen, and to be recognized as leaders of the people, be 
assured that no permanent success can be achieved by prac¬ 
tising the low, cunning arts of the unscrupulous and selfish 
demagogue. To say nothing of the hfgher and nobler consid¬ 
erations involved, honesty will always prove to be the best 
policy in public as well as in private affairs. If, then, you 
would deserve and achieve success in the field of politics, you 
must move forward with uplifted brow, and with unfaltering 
faith in the right. Remember that the obligations of patriotism 
require you to exert whatever influence you may possess, not 
only in preserving those cardinal principles which lie at the 
foundation of our representative system of government, but 
in contributing to the moral elevation and improvement of the 
individual citizen. The public safety and the national honor 
depend upon the force of individual character. What a happy 
day it will be in this country, when none but men of char¬ 
acter can command the public confidence and the public 


44 


support; when every position of honor and of trust shall be 
filled by a representative man of incorruptible integrity, who 
would “feel a stain like a wound,” and avoid corruption in 
office as he would shun the contact of death itself ! And 
here permit me to say for your encouragement, that, in order 
to take the lead upon the field of politics, it is not necessary 
for you to repress your honorable ambition until you have 
passed the summit of the hill of life, and begun to descend 
into the vale. It is not necessary for you to take a back seat, 
and wait until all the ardor and enthusiasm of youth have 
been chilled in your veins, and your heads have become whit¬ 
ened with the frosts of many winters. Bismarck of Germany, 
who rules with an iron will, and who is the recognized power be¬ 
hind the throne, greater even than the throne itself, has already 
passed the limit prescribed by the Psalmist, of threescore years 
and ten. Gladstone of England, the “old man eloquent,” and 
great leader of the Liberal party, who but yesterday electrified 
the House of Commons, and shook the kingdom from centre 
to circumference by his bold and fearless denunciation of the 
accumulated wrongs of unhappy Ireland, has nearly attained 
the age of fourscore years. But it was not always thus with 
the great party-leaders who have won an immortality of fame. 
Edmund Burke became famous by his speech on the Stamp 
Act when he was only thirty-six. Charles F'ox was the 
recognized leader of the Whig party in the House of Com¬ 
mons at the age of tw»enty-five. The younger Pitt entered 
the House of Commons at twenty-two, and at twenty-five 
astonished all Europe by his brilliant feats of statesmanship. 
If we examine the lives of the great party-leaders who have 
left their footprints upon American history, we find that 
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence, and the founder of the Democratic party, was conspic¬ 
uous in the Continental Congress at thirty-two. Alexander 
Hamilton, his great rival, and the acknowledged leader of 
the Federal party, took an active part in the proceedings 
of the Continental Congress at twenty-five, and became the 
Secretary of the Treasury before he was thirty-three. James 
Madison took his seat in the Continental Congress at twenty- 
nine, and at the age of thirty-eight was called the father of 


45 


the Constitution. Patrick Henry, the “forest-born Demos¬ 
thenes,” at the age of twenty-nine, in the Virginia House of 
Burgesses, made a speech upon the wrongs perpetrated by 
the mother country upon the colonies, which did more than 
any thing else to kindle the fires of the American Revolution. 
He declared in tones of thunder, “ Caesar had his Brutus, 
Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third may 
profit by their example.” Daniel Webster, the “godlike 
Daniel,” sometimes called the great expounder, entered Con¬ 
gress at thirty-one, and at thirty-two was the recognized 
leader of his party on the floor of the House. Henry Clay, 
the great commoner of the West, and the magnetic tribune 
of the people, who was perhaps more idolized by his party 
than any public man who has ever lived in this country, was 
a member of the United-States Senate at thirty, and was 
elected speaker of the House of Representatives at thirty- 
four. John C. Calhoun, that remarkable political prophet, 
who, as if gifted with inspiration, foresaw and foretold the 
dangers which finally culminated in a disruption of the Union, 
was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the 
House of Representatives at twenty-nine, and was Secretary 
of War at thirty-five. John Randolph of Roanoke, that bril¬ 
liant and eccentric genius, who was perhaps the most accom¬ 
plished belles-lettres scholar the House of Representatives has 
ever known, when he presented himself to qualify as a mem¬ 
ber, had so much the appearance of a beardless boy, that he 
was asked by the clerk if he was of the requisite age. To 
which he instantly replied, in a manner peculiarly his own, 
“Go and ask my constituents.” From these illustrations, and 
many others which might be given, it is clear that all political 
wisdom is not confined to the old heads which have already 
blossomed for the tomb; and that the young men of the 
country, blessed with vigor of body and of mind, have a right 
to aspire to leadership, as they did in the purer and better 
days of the republic before the Senate of the United States 
had become a political hospital for effete millionnaires, whose 
only qualification for the high place is, that they have been 
able to put money in their purses. 

But, gentlemen, allow me to suggest that you cannot all 


46 


become preachers, or professors, or journalists, or physicians, 
or lawyers, or statesmen. In my humble judgment, the 
learned professions, so called, are already too much crowded 
in this country. There are too many clever young men sit¬ 
ting idly in their offices, like “ Patience on a monument, smil¬ 
ing at Grief.” There are too many young lawyers without 
clients, too many young doctors without patients, too many 
young statesmen waiting anxiously to receive the “ sweet 
voices of the people.” The time has come in this country 
when at least some of our educated young men must carve 
out their fortunes in some other way. The age in which we 
live is eminently utilitarian and practical; perhaps it is too 
much so to suit the tastes of the more aesthetic, but our edu¬ 
cated young men now coming upon the theatre of active life 
must adapt themselves to the conditions in which they are 
placed ; they must respond to the requirements of the times 
in which they live: and, I repeat, this is a practical age. It 
has been said that the true epic of our times is not arms and 
the man, but tools and the man,—an infinitely wider kind 
of epic. It would be instructive to trace the progress of the 
great industries of the United States, and to dwell upon the 
wonderful advancement which has been made since the first 
settlement of the Colonies. What improvement has been 
made in house-building and agricultural implements, in ship¬ 
building and steam-navigation, in printing and the printing- 
press, in railroads and telegraphs and telephones, in every 
thing that can contribute to the comfort, welfare, and conven¬ 
ience of mankind! Handicraft labor was the first stage of 
the development of human power: machinery has been its 
latest and highest, and to-day machines with millions of 
fingers are working for millions of purchasers. In his un¬ 
civilized condition, man began with a stone for a hammer, and 
a piece of flint for a chisel. To-day the steam-engine, with 
its bowels of iron, and heart of fire, working night and day 
without rest and without sleep, drives spindles, pumps water, 
compresses cotton, hammers iron, threshes corn, prints books, 
ploughs land, saws timber, drives piles, impels ships, works 
railways, and excavates docks. It has asserted an almost 
boundless supremacy over the materials which enter into the 


4 7 


daily use of man. “It is the proud distinction of the inventor 
and the practical discoverer of useful improvements, that his 
achievements are permanent, and his additions to the sum of 
human knowledge remain.” Kingdoms, empires, and repub¬ 
lics may rise and fall ; governments may strew with their 
wrecks the pathway of history; creeds of faith, and schools 
of morality, may come and go ; the idle speculations of a thou¬ 
sand philosophic sects may perish ; the learned wranglers of 
the schools may pass away, and be forgotten, — but, in the elo¬ 
quent language of another, “ The discoveries of genius alone 
remain. It is to them we owe all that we now have. They 
are for all ages and all times. Never young, and never old, 
they bear the seeds of their own life. They flow on in a 
perennial and undying stream. They are essentially cumula¬ 
tive ; and, giving birth to the additions which they subse¬ 
quently receive, they influence the most distant posterity, 
and, after the lapse of centuries, produce more effect than 
they were able to do, even at the moment of their promulga¬ 
tion.” The humblest millwright has done more to advance 
the happiness of the human race than all the kings that lie 
embalmed in the catacombs of Egypt. The inventor of the 
family sewing-machine, of the plough that turns the deep soil 
of the fields, of the drill that plants them with grain at seed- 
ing-time, of the reaper and mower that glean and gather their 
bountiful harvests, is more entitled to be ranked as a bene¬ 
factor of mankind than all the dazzling and blood-stained war¬ 
riors of antiquity. Lord Bacon, the father of induction, has 
said, that “ whereas founders of states, law-givers, extirpers of 
tyrants, fathers of the people, were honored but with titles of 
worthies or demi-gods, inventors were ever consecrated with 
the gods themselves.” The names of Copernicus, Galileo, 
Newton, Watt, Davy, Fulton, Franklin, Morse, Henry, will 
live and shine as bright as the eternal stars in the heavens, 
long after the names of Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon have 
been buried in oblivion. The name of Maury, “ the Geogra¬ 
pher of the Sea,” who explored the bottom of the great deep, 
made a map of its channels, and marked out a safe highway 
for the commerce and travel of the world, will be held in 
grateful and affectionate remembrance as long as the centu- 


48 


ries move and the oceans roll. It is a great mistake to sup¬ 
pose that kings, warriors, and statesmen will monopolize 
forever all the pages of history and biography. While I 
would not pluck a single leaf from the brow of the destruc¬ 
tive heroes who have lived and flourished, I maintain that the 
constructive ones should not, and will not, be forgotten. 
They have exhibited a heroism of skill and toil, not so peril¬ 
ous and romantic, it may be, but not less worthy of grateful 
record, and not less full of the results of human energy, 
bravery, and character. All honor, then, to those who have 
done so much to give dignity to labor, to elevate the indus¬ 
trial classes, to subjugate all the elements of the material 
universe, and to render them subservient to the comfort, the 
convenience, and the happiness, of mankind ! 

With such noble examples to stimulate and encourage 
them, will our young men be content to dream over the 
splendid achievements of their ancestors ? or will they arise, 
like young giants refreshed by sleep, and go to work with a 
resolute purpose and an indomitable will worthy of the heroic 
race from which they sprang ? Instead of calling forever 
upon Hercules for help, would it not be far better if they 
would determine to help themselves ? Instead of waiting for 
hardy, thrifty immigrants from the Northern States and from 
Europe to come in and possess the land, would it not be far 
better that our own young men should address themselves to 
the task of developing the unrivalled resources of their own 
country ? Why should not our own educated young men 
become practical agriculturists, manufacturers, miners, miner¬ 
alogists, engineers, and explorers ? Have they sprung from 
a race of men and women who were mere drones, without 
energy, and incapable of achieving any practical results ? On 
the contrary, I affirm, without the fear of successful contradic¬ 
tion, that no people in any age of the world’s history have 
ever exhibited greater recuperative energies than the people 
of the South have exhibited since the termination of the war. 
The statistical tables will show that they have produced more 
corn, more wheat, more tobacco, more sugar, more rice, more 
cotton, more manufactures, than they ever did in the same 
number of years before. They have built more miles of 


49 


railroad than they ever did in the same number of years 
before. They may point with just pride to the splendid 
achievements of their ancestors in all the fields where honor 
and glqry have been won ; but, at the same time, they may 
contemplate, at least with satisfaction, the wonderful energy, 
industry, and heroism displayed by themselves, while in the 
face of adverse fortune, and surrounded by difficulties, physi¬ 
cal, financial, and political, they have wrested so much wealth 
from the soil, and brought it with willing hands to the 
common treasury of the country. 

In this connection permit me to say that while I rejoice 
exceedingly on account of the wonderful recuperative ener¬ 
gies displayed by the Southern people, and the extraordinary 
progress they have made in material development and im¬ 
provement, I have no sympathy whatever with those who 
would exalt the “ New South,” as it is flippantly called, by 
detracting from the just fame of the Old South. The high 
qualities which distinguish the “ New South,” as it is called, 
have been inherited from the Old. They do not owe their 
existence to the infusion of any new elements from abroad. 
While the condition and circumstances of the people of the 
“ New South ” are very different from those of the Old South, 
they are essentially the same people. Nor have I any sym¬ 
pathy with that class of Southern orators who seem to be so 
ready and willing, when they appear before Northern audi¬ 
ences, to adopt the apologetic strain, to advertise themselves 
as erring brothers, and to pour contumely and contempt upon 
those who signalized their devotion to the cause of Southern 
independence. If such is to be the badge of the “ New 
South,” I will have none of it. The people of the South to¬ 
day are true and loyal to the restored Union. When they 
furled at Appomattox that torn and tattered banner, which 
they had followed with more than Spartan courage during 
four long, weary years, and professed to renew their allegiance 
to the Government of the United States, they acted in good 
faith, and meant what they said. If, unfortunately, our com¬ 
mon country should ever be involved in trouble with a 
foreign power, and the Government should call for volunteers, 
the men of the South would respond with as much alacrity 


50 


as those of any other section. But, as long as they retain 
their manhood and self-respect, the Southern people will be 
ready to maintain before all comers and goers, that the cause 
for which they fought, and which was lost, was as just and 
righteous a cause as ever a warrior drew a blade in. They 
will never be willing to bow down before their conquerors 

with their mouths in the dust, and their hands upon their 

mouths, and cry, “ Unclean, unclean ! ” They will never con¬ 
sent with their own hands to write the word “Traitor” 
upon the brow of any Confederate living, or upon the grave 
of any Confederate dead. On the contrary, they will cherish 
forever in their “heart of hearts” the precious memory of 

their dead heroes; and when each succeeding spring-time 

shall come, as the years roll on, they will bring flowers, sweet 
flowers, to be laid by the hand of affection upon their hon¬ 
ored graves. They will still cling to the “ land of memories ; ” 
and, when contemplating the past, they will find expression 
for their sentiments and feelings in the noble words of 
Father Ryan, the “Poet Priest of the South,” “A land with¬ 
out ruins is a land without memories. A land without mem¬ 
ories is a land without liberty.” 

A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see ; but 
twine a few sad cypress-leaves around the brow of any land, 
and, be that land beautiless and bleak, it becomes lovely in 
its consecrated coronet of sorrow, and it wins the sympathy 
of the heart and history. Crowns of roses fade ; crowns of 
thorns endure ; Calvaries and crucifixes take deepest hold of 
humanity. The triumphs of might are transient : they pass 
away, and are forgotten. The sufferings of right are graven 
deepest on the chronicles of nations. 

“Yes, give me a land where the ruins are spread, 

And the living tread light on the hearts of the dead; 

Yes, give me a land that is blest by the dust, 

And bright with the deeds, of the downtrodden just; 

Yes, give me the land that hath legend and lays. 

Enshrining the memories of long-vanished days; 

Yes, give me a land that hath story and song, 

To tell of the strife of the Right with the Wrong ; 

Yes, give me the land with a grave in each spot, 

And names in the graves that shall not be forgot; 


5i 


Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb, — 

There’s a grandeur in graves, there’s a glory in gloom; 

For out of the gloom, future brightness is born, 

As, after the night, looms the sunrise of morn.” 

But I have already detained you too long. 

So far as you are concerned, nothing is needed to insure 
success but a fixed resolve that you will act well your part in 
life. So far as the country is concerned, nothing is needed 
to inaugurate a new era of prosperity but a resolute purpose 
and an earnest effort on the part of the young men. If our 
educated young men will determine not to shrink from honest 
toil; if they will seek employment, not only in the learned 
professions, but in the useful departments of agriculture, 
commerce, mining, and manufactures ; if they will carry into 
those departments, not only strong arms and stout hearts, 
but skilled labor, trained intellect, and incorruptible integrity, 
— then our beloved country will “bloom and blossom like the 
rose.” It may be that all of you may not be able to become 
leaders. It may be that from some of you the sacred spark 
of genius has been withheld, but you may all acquire some 
measure of influence. Philosophy teaches that a stone cast 
into the ocean communicates an impulse to its waters which 
is felt on the most distant shore washed by its waves, and 
that a word spoken makes an impression on the atmosphere 
co-extensive with its limits. From every heart, there pro¬ 
ceed influences more or less powerful, which radiate, and 
intwine with other hearts. Soul acts and re-acts upon soul, 
and the spark which fires a single breast is conveyed like 
electricity to surrounding bosoms. 

Gentlemen, the fate of republican institutions on this 
continent will be, to some extent, committed to your hands. 
If the great experiment nowin progress here, should prove 
to be a failure, ages may pass away before the rights and 
safety of all are again confided to the custody of all. While 
we thank God for the services and sacrifices which he ena¬ 
bled our fathers to make in the acquisition of freedom and 
independence, let us thank him also that we are able to 
strengthen their work, and to transmit to our children, as 
they transmitted to theirs, the noblest inheritance that be- 


52 


longs to man. Let us thank him that while the foul spirit 
of communism and infidelity, and the socialistic heresies now 
prevalent in the Old World, are threatening governments with 
overthrow, by means of dynamite and dagger, here in this 
highly favored land they have not yet made sufficient prog¬ 
ress to awaken the apprehensions, or alarm the fears, of the 
patriot. There is no tyranny here to oppress any class of 
our citizens. There is no persecution here to arouse sympa¬ 
thy for its victims. While some of the pestilent leaders of 
socialism have been permitted to go about the country 
preaching sedition, and advising the people to substitute the 
bullet for the ballot, their wicked utterances have been gen¬ 
erally accepted as the idle vaporings of worthless vagabonds; 
and the great body of the American workingmen, to whom 
they have addressed themselves, have openly repudiated them 
and their doctrines. Let us thank God that while a distin¬ 
guished lawyer, “native, and to the manor born,” has been 
abusing his great gifts, and prostituting his brilliant talents, 
by preaching infidelity, and scoffing at sacred things, he and 
his coadjutors have thus far made but little progress in un¬ 
settling the faith of our people in those religious truths which 
they learned at the knees of pious mothers in the days of their 
childhood. The religion of the Bible, which has come down 
to us through the ages, and has conferred such untold benefits 
and blessings upon mankind, is too strongly intrenched in 
the hearts of our people, and has too long withstood the 
assaults of scepticism, to be overthrown at this day by the 
ribald jest and florid declamation of one who has nothing to 
offer in the place of that which, with impious hand, he seeks 
to pull down and destroy. As my theme to-day has been to 
some extent “the leaders of men,” it seems to me that I 
ought not to conclude without making at least a brief refer¬ 
ence to woman as a leader. Whatever we undertake in life, 
we may esteem ourselves fortunate if we have the sympathy 
and encouragement of our mothers, our wives, and our daugh¬ 
ters. I heard a great man say once, that he always made a 
mistake when he failed to follow the advice of his wife. The 
ladies are confessedly the best judges of character, and seem 
to reach their conclusions about men and things as if by 


53 


intuition. The most beautiful feature of their leadership is, 
that they generally keep their leading-strings out of sight, 
and lead the men without letting them know it. “ Where 
ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” It is true that our 
ladies do not harangue from the rostrum, like the self-styled 
lords of creation, but they are the acknowledged queens of 
our hearts and our homes. It is true that they do not wield 
the ballot, or govern the State; but it is an open secret that 
by the sceptre of love they can easily govern those who 
govern the State. Along the private walks of life, around 
the family fireside, and throughout the social circle, they 
wield a power, and exert an influence, which must be potent 
for good so long as virtue has an adorer, or the finer feelings 
of our nature have a location in the breast of man. 

And now, gentlemen, my task is done. If I have said any 
thing calculated to inspire you with a more lofty purpose, or 
to give fresh impulse to your minds in seeking to attain the 
highest standard of excellence, I shall feel that my mission 
has not been altogether in vain. Permit me, in conclusion, 
to express the hope that you may be eminently successful in 
the career upon which you are about to enter; that you may 
be bright and shining lights in your day and generation; and 
that, when you come to die, you may sink to rest with the 
clouds that close in on your departure, gold-tipped with the 
glorious effulgence of a well-spent life. 

THE ALUMNI LUNCH. 

At the conclusion of the able address by Mr. Goode, lunch 
was served in the college chapel, to which all former students 
of the college were invited. About three hundred plates 
were laid, and all were soon taken. The tables were hand¬ 
somely decorated by the ladies of the community with cut- 
flowers. All the delicacies of the season were on hand, of 
which all partook heartily. 

After the repast, Col. I. E. Shumate of Dalton, Ga., a dis¬ 
tinguished alumnus, acting in the capacity of toast-master, in 
his happy vein, proposed the following sentiments, which 
were responded to by the following distinguished gentlemen. 
We are glad to be able to give the body of all that was said. 


54 


Rarely in the history of any country was there ever gathered 
together at one table such able speakers representing every 
department of life. 

THE TOASTS AND RESPONSES. 

I. Col. Shumate began by saying, — 

Mr. President and Gentlemen , Alumni of Emory and Henry 
College , — 

At some banquets I have attended, the chief duty of the 
toast-master seemed to be to determine how often glasses 
should be tipped, and how far apart the tips should be. I 
trust that my supposed capacity for that sort of ceremony did 
not suggest my appointment to the position. It would be 
discourteous to hint, in this presence, that it has ever been 
contemplated that any thing akin to tippling should have a 
place on the programme. 

In this connection permit me to say, that from the gov¬ 
ernor’s comments this morning upon the sumptuary law of 
William and Mary College, which prescribed that its students 
should drink at table nothing stronger than beer, ale, wine, 
and spirits and water, I infer that his excellency would 
approve a general prohibition cyclone, which would sweep 
every bar-room and drinking-saloon from the face of the Old 
Dominion. But, without any good reason for it, I incline 
to the opinion, that, were he in the legislative department, 
his excellency would favor a “ Local Option Bill,” which 
some of the judiciary have interpreted to be a bill to allow 
every gentleman the option to take a weak toddy at any place 
he may choose, except in a bar-room or a saloon. 

Upon this occasion it is my duty to introduce to this fra¬ 
ternity a few of the many gentlemen present who can illus¬ 
trate that there may be sparkling wit without sparkling 
champagne, and that there may be a “ flow of soul ” in the 
absence of “ the flowing bowl.” 

The first sentiment I see upon the programme is somewhat 
confusing : — 

“ Our Alumni. 

1 There never was a bond of love like this: 

We have drunk from the same canteen.’ ” 


55 


If this assembly consisted mainly of old veterans who 
belonged to the same command, I could readily find a man 
who could fit the sentiment to the occasion. I do see a gen¬ 
tleman here with whom I associated in these halls thirty 
years ago. 

“ At his elbow, souter Johnny, 

His ancient, trusty, drouther crony ; 

Tam lo’ed him like a vera brither ; 

They had been fou for weeks thegither.” 

While this is not literally true in reference to my friend and 
myself, I decline to call upon him to respond to the ambigu¬ 
ous sentiment. Though a remarkably prudent man, he might, 
in the abandon of the occasion, lift the veil from some scenes 
which, though pleasant enough to remember, had as well 
be forgotten. 

I pass on to the next sentiment, — 

“Emory and Henry , — her founders'' 

When I remember the fact, that, throughout the Southern 
States, many of her sons have filled, and are filling with dis¬ 
tinguished ability, positions of honor at the bar, upon the 
bench, in the pulpit and in legislative halls, State and national, 
I will add to the sentiment, “They builded wiser than they 
knew.” But one of the original board of trustees is now 
living, Col. Thomas L. Preston. Were he present, it would 
be my pleasure to call upon him to respond. When I knew 
him, he was in the vigor of manhood, of exceptionally com¬ 
manding presence, a scholarly man, and an eloquent speaker. 
Doubtless, though well-stricken in years, if he were present, 
his response would be most happy. I see present an invited 
guest whose reputation for saying the right thing at the right 
place and in the right way has become national, and has gone 
even beyond the Atlantic. The editor of “ The Los Angeles 
Advocate” explains this happy faculty somewhat in this 
wise. He says that the right reverend gentleman is so ex¬ 
ceedingly deliberate that he can select the very best word in 
the language for his purpose, and fit it to its place with con¬ 
summate literary taste ; and that his ex-tempore speeches have 
all the completeness of the studied productions of other men. 

I call upon Bishop McTyeire for a well-considered response 


56 


to the sentiment, “Emory and Henry,—her founders: they 
builded wiser than they knew'.' 

Bishop McTyeire arose, and spoke about as follows : — 

“Founders are seldom honored in their own time. It is 
the privilege and duty of posterity to pay this debt. Let us 
call over the names, to-day, of Byars, Price, Tobias Smith, 
Alexander Findlay, Thomas L. Preston, and especially of 
Creed Fulton, and do them reverence. They were wiser for 
their times than their contemporaries : they foresaw the wants 
of the Church and the State, and the proper means of supply. 
Not only wise were they, but liberal. The five-hundred- 
dollar donation of Tobias Smith then was equivalent to 
many thousands now. For half a century it has been bear¬ 
ing compound interest. Uncle Toby’s hospitality was pro¬ 
verbial. He lived near, kept open house, and the boys were 
often in it. He kept a fine orchard, too, and it is said the 
boys were often in that. [Laughter.] Gov. Lee, at my 
elbow, shrewdly suggests that Uncle Toby did not realize 
compound interest on the latter investment. Quite likely! 
[Renewed laughter.] 

“ I feel a kind of reverence when talking of founders. 
Misunderstood, and often misrepresented, and even calumni¬ 
ated while they lived, their appeal was to posterity. They 
were instruments in God’s hands — seers. They built wiser 
than they knew. Yes, the true founder, like Creed Fulton, 
is ahead of his age : he points them forward, and animates 
them by giving them glimpses of his own clear visions. 
When, fifty years ago, Fulton stood on this corner-stone, he 
gave to the wondering, incredulous multitude of listeners a 
description of what we see now. Doubtless he did not re¬ 
veal the whole* of what had in part been revealed to him. 
But he saw this day, and was glad. Oh ! could those toilers 
have seen the benefit to their fellow-men, to their church, 
and to their country, that would result from Emory and Henry 
College, how would they have rejoiced at the privilege and 
honor God bestowed on them as her founders ! 

“ Let us turn from the past, and face for a moment to the 
future. What of the next fifty years, rounding out the cen¬ 
tury? Every institution like this has two sets of founders. 


57 


We, at the semi-centennial, celebrate the first: those who meet 
here, at the centennial, will call over the names of the second, 
and do them honor. Read the history of the old colleges in 
the North and East, —of Harvard, Yale, Amherst, and the rest. 
It will be seen that they were established on small foundations, 
and ran for years on narrow incomes. Then, when they had 
shown their right to be, or, as the French say, ‘ La raison 
d'etre ,’—the reason for their existence, — friends, patrons, 
some of their own alumni, came forward, and enlarged them 
with grand gifts. Thence dates their new era. Is it not time 
for the second founders of Emory and Henry College to appear ? 
We wait their coming. The time is ripe. The opportunity 
is great. When the alumni meet at the centennial, few 
of this company will be there: perhaps not one. Other 
portraits will hang upon the walls, — portraits of the second 
generation of founders. In advance I say, ‘Hail! All honor 
to them.’ This college has demonstrated her right to exist. 
Her works praise her. It is a thing ever much wondered at, 
that men without experience, as were Fulton and Findlay and 
Byars and the rest, in the management of such things, suc¬ 
ceeded in organizing so able a faculty of instruction at the 
start; and they have kept up worthy successors in professors’ 
chairs to this present time. Here is no longer an experiment. 
If on the past foundation Emory and Henry has done so great 
a work, what may justly be expected when the second founders# 
with their enlarged resources and facilities, have done their 
work ? All honor to the past founders, and the future ; to 
those who have been, and to those who shall be ! ” 

II. At the conclusion of Bishop McTyeire’s remarks, the 
toast-master introduced the next sentiment, as follows : — 

“ Dr. H. V. M. Miller of Georgia tells an anecdote illus¬ 
trative of a peculiar type of the Confederate soldier. The 
soldier was exceedingly anxious for the fray to begin, and 
repeatedly expressed himself as hungry for a fight. After 
the first little brush of battle in which his command was 
engaged, his colonel found the doughty warrior a mile in 
the rear, crouching tremblingly behind a friendly tree. The 
colonel accosted him thus : ‘ What are you doing here, you 
cowardly rascal ? I thought you were hungry for a fight.’ — 


58 


‘ So I was,’ replied the warrior; ‘ but I hope, colonel, you 
don’t take me for a blamed glutton ! ’ Now, while I do not 
care to share honors with the abstemious soldier, I must 
confess I never felt ravenous for blood. Early in the action, 
an army-surgeon pronounced me unfit for field-service on 
account of ‘constitutional depravity.’ The detail did not 
give the details of the depravity, whether it was moral or 
physical. Yet I am sure the doctor put his judgment upon 
the proper ground. Thereafter I did valiant service in the 
quartermaster’s department. 

“ I do not overstate the case when I say that a regiment of 
Emory boys, a thousand strong, did nobly where the fight was 
thickest. Many of them went down in the tempest of battle, 
revelling amid dangers as the eagle revels amid the storm; 
and their hero-dust now sleeps in unmarked graves, in ‘the 
bivouac of the dead,’ though not unwept or unsung. Many, 
too, rose to high command. I may mention a few from the 
many, — Gen. William E. Jones of Virginia; Gen. Henry D. 
Clayton of Alabama; and the knightliest knight of them all, 
who, when rollicking over these hills in boyish glee, was 
familiarly called “Beauty” Stuart. Professor C. E. Vawter, 
principal of Miller School, will respond to the sentiment, 

“ ‘ Emory and Henry. Her sons have illustrated Southern 
bravery upon the battle-field .’ ” 

Omitting some personal mention, among them that of Major 
W. C. Sanders, a gallant companion in arms, Capt. Vawter 
spoke as follows : — 

“From the spring under the hill, from these beautiful 
groves, from these halls consecrated by the prayers of our 
sainted founders, to the hot, tiresome, dusty march, to the 
clash of arms, and to the din of battle, went in April, 1861, 
nearly three hundred brave men as ever stood for truth, or 
ever dared to do and die for the right, as God gave them to 
see the right. 

“ It is true that some few fiery ones flew to the scenes of 
imaginary conflict before the rest of us got ready to say fare¬ 
well to the banner of our fathers. But these fiery ones, as a 
rule, were through with their fighting before the war began ; 












































59 


and one or two of them were even back in the Union before 
Manassas had made Southern chivalry and Southern heroism 
live forever in story and in song. But these few exceptions 
made the rule that the students of Emory and Henry College 
were found almost solidly in the fore-front of the ranks that 
flamed for three thousand miles to guard the citadel of the 
sweetest and purest homes that ever sweetened and glad¬ 
dened earth since Eden was. 

“ To this host of young men who left Emory in 1861 to fight 
in almost every division of the Southern army, there was 
added another and greater host from the alumni of Emory 
and Henry College. These were to be found at every point 
where Southern rights were to be defended, and where glory 
was to be won. 

“The dead of our alumni lie buried — many in unknown 
graves — from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. More glori¬ 
ous heroes never died for country, truth, and right. Had 
peace been purchased from an overwhelming power by vot¬ 
ing them as outlaws and traitors, peace, though never too 
sweet, had been too dearly bought. 

“But thanks be to Him who rules in the armies of earth, 
and over the passions of men, the same heroism that sent 
such men as Emory’s alumni to the front on the one side, 
sent others of equal heroism and of equal devotion to duty 
on the other side. 

“ These taught in dreadful conflict, each the valor of the 
other, and led by the spirits of their great chieftains, Lee 
and Grant, have formed a bulwark for freedom that can never 
be stormed or taken by fire-eater or fanatic. 

“ Thus to-day, from the ashes of our despair, cemented by 
the blood of our bravest and best, there rises a nation grander 
than our highest hopes had ever painted ; and God, who is 
ever faithful and ever true, has answered the dying prayers 
of our heroes ; and our land, unshackled from the dead corpse 
that bore her down, is now rising to greatness, prosperity, 
and wealth. Peace, then, to the ashes of our noble dead, and 
success to the soldier-citizens of our alumni, who, in the great 
battle of life, are fighting for the truth as taught us by your 
colleagues, to honor whom we have come to-day from all 
over our beautiful Southern land.” 


6 o 


III. Capt. Vawter’s response was loudly applauded. When 
quiet was restored, the toast-master arose, and said, — 

“I had hoped that my friend, John R. Neal, who represents 
the Third Tennessee District in Congress, would be present 
to-day. John has twice got to Congress, from a closely con¬ 
tested district, like the Dutchman got to heaven, ‘by a- 

tight squeeze.’ Some funny things occur in political contests. 
Neal’s last opponent, Gen. J. B. Wilder, is a man of great 
personal popularity, a scholarly, generous man, having large 
capital at his command. The general had been to Europe, 
and upon his return, in a lecture, stated that among the lower 
order of peasantry in Dutch-land, occasionally the husband 
holds the handles while his wife pulls the plough. John’s 
chief-of-staff thought he would utilize the idea, and brought 
out a ridiculous caricature, in which Hans was represented as 
struggling between the plough-handles, with a liberal display 
of ‘ bay-window,’ while he ‘ larruped ’ his fran harnessed at the 
end of the beam. This, to catch the foreign vote. The pic¬ 
ture was labelled, ‘ Gen. Wilder’s idea of foreigners.’ I have 
no idea that John had any thing to do with the matter, but 
it illustrates the tricks of the politicians. 

“ Judge Lochraneof Georgia tells of a colloquy he had with 
a Northern Congressman. Said the Northern man, substan¬ 
tially, ‘ You Southerners have a very poor conception of the 
prodigal son. My idea of the prodigal is, that with gaunt and 
hungry look, and clothed in sackcloth, he meekly confesses 
that he has sinned, and is no more worthy to be called a son, 
but craves to be made as a hired servant, and patiently 
waits until his father orders the slaughtering of the fatted 
calf. You fellows come stalking into the Capitol, with your 
‘ Prince Alberts ’ buttoned tight around you, and with your 
gold-headed canes in dignified poise, and with the most im¬ 
pudent nonchalance demand, ‘Where in the deuce is that 
veal ? ’ 

“ And why not ? We have nothing to be ashamed of. ‘ We 
are in our fathers’ house, and have come to stay.’ The war 
between the States was a desperate struggle over conflicting 
constructions of the Federal Constitution. Southern states¬ 
men had maintained the States-rights construction for three- 



6i 


quarters of a century, and only yielded it upon the award of 
the dread arbitrament of the sword. 

“ 'Emory and Henry. Her sons have illustrated Southern 
statesmanship in the halls of Congress.’ 

“ Hon. John Goode of Norfolk will respond.” 

The following was Hon. John Goode’s response to this 
sentiment: — 

“ It is refreshing, my friends, to turn aside from the bustle 
and turmoil of life, its busy cares and agitating conflicts, to 
enjoy the privilege of mingling in scenes like the present. 

“Such re-unions as this are not only pleasant, but profitable. 
They not only afford an opportunity to indulge the pleasing 
reminiscences of the past, and to renew the happy associa¬ 
tions of youth, but they furnish to each one of us an incentive 
to loftier effort in the future. They remind us that our be¬ 
loved Alma Mater watches with maternal interest and affec¬ 
tion the individual career of each one of us, and that if we are 
so fortunate as to act well our part in life, and make our 
mark upon the times in which we live, we will thereby reflect 
additional credit and lustre upon her honored name. In 
response to the sentiment which has just been proposed, per¬ 
mit me to say, that, as this institution is only fifty years old, 
the number of her sons who have been honored by seats in 
the halls of Congress is, of course, not so large as that con¬ 
tributed by older institutions of learning in our country, some 
of which antedate the existence of Congress itself. But at 
the same time, it may be said with truth, that, when Emory 
and Henry comes to make up her jewels on this the occasion 
of her semi-centennial celebration, she may well congratulate 
herself on the fact, that a goodly number of her sons have 
illustrated Southern patriotism in the halls of Congress. 
While I have no disposition to make any invidious distinc¬ 
tions, or to detract in any degree from the well-earned fame 
of other institutions, I think it may be said without the fear 
of successful contradiction, that in none of them is more 
attention bestowed upon the study of elocution, and the culti¬ 
vation of oratory. None of them can boast of literary socie¬ 
ties in which questions are debated with more learning and 
ability. The speeches annually delivered by the graduates 


62 


of this college, and the competitors for the Robertson Prize 
Medal, show extraordinary proficiency in elocution. By con¬ 
stant practice in the debating societies, the young men are 
taught to think, to reason, to investigate, and to express their 
thoughts with clearness, perspicuity, and force. As the result 
of the training received here, many of them, after leaving the 
college, have taken high rank as public speakers, and some of 
them have found their way into the halls of Congress. What 
soul-stirring events have transpired in our country since the 
organization of this college, fifty years ago! During that 
time, the South has witnessed the most gigantic civil war the 
world has ever known. Her green fields were made to run 
red with the best blood of her children. Her sleeping cities 
were awakened by the music of bursting bombs. The thun¬ 
der of hostile cannon echoed and re-echoed along all her 
coasts. From the foundation of the Government, there had 
been two opposing theories as to the limitations of its powers 
under the Constitution. These radical differences of opinion 
finally culminated in war. The people of the South took up 
arms, not for the perpetuation of African slavery, but for the 
preservation of local self-government, and all those inalien¬ 
able rights which, as freemen, they held to be dearer than 
life itself. While the war continued, almost every inch of 
her territory was pressed by its red, fiery hoof. Almost every 
# field was a battle-field, and almost every house a hospital. 
When the war terminated, her people had nothing left to 
them but the soil. Their labor system had been swept away ; 
their agricultural implements had been destroyed; their State 
governments had been overthrown. Upon the re-admission 
of the Southern States into the Union, their representatives 
in the halls of Congress occupied a most delicate and respon¬ 
sible position. Having abandoned forever the doctrine of 
secession, they were required, by the obligations of patriotism, 
to do all in their power to promote the prosperity and success 
of the country and the whole country. But, while perform¬ 
ing their duty and their whole duty to the restored Union, 
they could not be expected to abandon those cardinal princi¬ 
ples which they have been taught to cherish as the sheet- 
anchor of their safety, and the palladium of their liberties. It 


63 


is a great mistake to suppose that the character of the gov¬ 
ernment formed by our fathers has been essentially changed 
by the result of the war. The war abolished slavery, and 
destroyed forever the doctrine of secession ; but it did not 
break down the barriers of the Constitution. It did not 
remove its limitations of power. It did not destroy the fed¬ 
eral character of the Republic. It did not convert a govern¬ 
ment of well-defined and limited powers into a grand, consoli¬ 
dated empire. It decided that the Union is to be indissoluble, 
but it is to be an indissoluble Union of free and indestructi¬ 
ble States. The greatest danger that threatens the continued 
existence of the Union arises now not from the doctrine of 
secession, but from the doctrine of consolidation. There has 
never been a time in our history when it was more important 
for Southern representatives in the halls of Congress to 
oppose the centralizing tendencies of the Government, and 
to maintain the doctrine of strict construction. If we would 
preserve our liberties, we must guard with ceaseless vigi¬ 
lance the right of local self-government, and the reserved 
powers of the States under the Constitution. While these 
exist, the Republic will live. When these are overthrown, 
the Republic will perish.” 

IV. The next speaker was Hon. John A. Buchanan, who 
responded to the fourth sentiment. Col. Shumate introduced 
it, as follows : — 

“A gentleman said to me a moment ago, * Your business is 
to furnish the mortar for the building.’ I fear you will think 
the mortar joints are a trifle thick. 

“ Two of the four judges who have presided in the superior 
courts in which I practise have been Emory men, — Josiah 
R. Parrott and Joel C. Fain. Judge Willis of Columbus, 
Ga., an alumnus of the college, — a grand man, too, he was,— 
a few days ago went over to ‘the great voteless majority.’ 
White of the Court of Appeals of Texas, Brooks of the 
United-States District Court of North Carolina, Holly of 
Illinois, Fulton and Kelly of Virginia, Monroe of South 
Carolina, and many others, — alumni of the college, — have 
presided in the courts of their respective States. I am told 
that my friend to the right is the leading lawyer in South- 


64 


west Virginia, and that his advocacy or opposition in the 
Virginia Legislature well-nigh carried or killed a measure. 

“'Emory and Henry. Jurist and judges from her halls 
have honored the States .* 

“I ask a response from the Hon. John A. Buchanan of 
Abingdon.” 

Hon. John A. Buchanan of the Abingdon bar arose, and 
said, among other things, — 

Mr. President , and Brethren of the Alumni , — 

I respond with pleasure to a toast so agreeable from its 
nature and its source : so agreeable from its nature, because 
it is in honor of that noble profession of which I am a 
humble member; of the men who have gone out from Emory 
and Henry College, and devoted their lives to the study, the 
practice, and the administration of the law ; of the men who 
have studied the law as a science and not as a trade, and 
who have practised it, not merely for the gold they could 
get, but also for the good they could do. 

I rejoice that the lives of many of that number* scattered 
as they are in almost every State of this Union, have been 
characterized by learning, by fidelity, and by the candid cour¬ 
age which comes from clear convictions; and that they, 
whether on the bench or at the bar, have benefited their 
country, honored their profession, and helped their race; that 
they belong to that great conservative element of the country 
which stands between monopoly and power, with their cen¬ 
tralizing and despotic tendencies on the one side, and the 
mob seeking to convert liberty into license, and order into 
anarchy, on the other, and saying to each, “Thus far shalt 
thou go, and no farther.” In honor of that profession, which, 
in any great contest for civil liberty, ay, and for religious 
liberty too, has stood in the fore-front of the battle, and 
struck the strongest and best-directed blows in its defence. 
And, further, in honor of the men who have studied the Con¬ 
stitution and laws of their country, and have learned by 
observation and experience that in their growth and develop¬ 
ment are to be found the growth and the glory of their 
country, and the increased liberty and prosperity of its peo- 


65 


pie ; of men who have learned that no people are ever better 
than their laws, and that when corruption has worked its 
way into the great popular heart, and love and reverence for 
that Constitution and laws have been destroyed, that such a 
people must inevitably and miserably die. 

I respond to the sentiment with pleasure because of its 
source. It is the voice of the alumni of this college, who 
have left the dust and turmoil of every-day life, and have 
gathered here, after many years of absence, to revisit the 
scenes of their college-life before 

“ The trumpet-call of truth 
Pealed on the idle dreams of youth; ” 

to recall by actual associations college friendships, incidents, 
and rivalries, to see again the walks by the brook and in the 
groves, to listen again to the music of languages dead, until 
their thoughts are carried back 

“To the woods that wave on Delphi’s steep, 

Through the isles that crown the ^Egean deep, 

O’er the fields that the cool Elissus lave, 

Or where Meander’s amber waves in lingering labyrinth creep,” 

until they are lost in the memories of the long ago, and they 
can see gathered around them again the faces, and listen 
again to the voices, of college companions and friends long 
since resting in the “ dark home and long sleep.” The asso¬ 
ciations and surroundings of this day fill the memory with 
college traditions “which around this quiet vale and these 
hills do hang.” College memories come trooping in from 
every side. Though dead, I see again the manly form and 
bright eye of Charlie Fulton, and hear again the ringing 
tones of Francis Buhrman as he paints the wrongs and suf¬ 
ferings of India under the rule of Warren Hastings. I see 
another, — oh that intemperance could ever have darkened 
an intellect so bright, or chilled a heart so generous and so 
warm! — I see him again declaiming the address- of the: 
gladiator, Spartacus. With a tear on his cheek, I hear again) 
his voice as musical and sweet as was ever given to the sons 
of men. Under the magical influence of his wondrous power, 


66 


Spartacus lived again on his Thracian hills. But enough of 
this. We can only look back on college life and sigh, and 
say,— 

“’Twas a light which ne’er can shine again 
On life’s dull stream.” 


I see around me to-day some who sat by this college at its 
birth, who watched by its cradle, and saw it outgrow “ the 
chances of a child,” and become a learned and well-ordered 
school. I trust there are some present here to-day at this 
its semi-centennial who will be present at its centennial, who 
will then, when its first hundred years shall have come and 
gone, see, and be able to say, that Emory and Henry College 
has so impressed itself upon the country and the confidence 
of the people, that it has become so fixed in the love and 
affections of that Church which controls it, and of the stu¬ 
dents who received their training in its halls, that that mate¬ 
rial wealth which it now so much needs has been showered 
upon it by its alumni and friends, until if has become estab¬ 
lished upon a foundation so firm that it shall have duration 
without end, and that it can then say with Tennyson’s 
brook, — 

“ Men may come, and men may go, 

But I go on forever.” 

V. Long and continued applause greeted the remarks of 
Mr. Buchanan, the drift of which we have only been able to 
give. The next sentiment was responded to by Rev. Sam 
Small. The toast-master introduced it by a complimentary 
reference to Dr. David Sullius, who was unexpectedly de¬ 
tained at home. He spoke thus : — 

“Two years ago, an alumnus of this institution walked 
into a Methodist District Conference, in Gordon County, Ga. 
A brother, who happened to know that the visitor was a 
superb vocalist, called upon him for a song. The doctor gave 
them ‘ The Old Ship of Zion ’ in his happiest Holston style. 
Of course he captured the crowd. He told his admiring 
hearers that he had learned the song in or from the chain- 
gang, down about Bristol. Delicacy prevented me from 


67 


pushing any inquiry as to that peculiar singing-school. The 
next day the doctor preached to the assembled multitude 
from the text, ‘ the seed of the woman shall bruise the ser¬ 
pent’s head.’ I have once or twice tried to speak to a mob, 
and found it sailing against wind and tide. But I never 
tackled a thunder-storm. On that occasion, the doctor held 
an immense audience in the face of a terrific thunder-storm. 
Finally, the crowd dispersed to escape the rain, which fell in 
torrents; but the rain had scarcely ceased when the multi¬ 
tude again assembled, and demanded that the preacher pro¬ 
ceed. As he described Moses’ familiarity with the Almighty, 
which enabled him to write, ‘ In the beginning, God created 
the heavens and the earth ; ’ and as he illustrated how Israel’s 
poet-king, when pursued by his enemies, wailed out, ‘As the 
hart panteth for the water-brooks, so panteth my soul for 
thee, O God!’ and how, when despair seemed to settle upon 
his soul, he broke forth in melting numbers, ‘ The Lord is 
my shepherd, I shall not want,’—the wondering, weeping 
multitude stood for an hour, upon the wet ground under the 
dripping trees, swayed as if by magic by the sweeping elo¬ 
quence of Dr. David Sullius. 

“All over the Holston Conference the most important 
pulpits are manned by Emory men. We have our Garland 
in Lynchburg, our Bledsoe and the inimitable Lafferty in 
Richmond, our Merlein in New Orleans, our Hogg and Left- 
wich in Nashville, our Steele in Louisville; and in Atlanta, 
an alumnus of the college has in less than two years 
achieved national fame. 

“ ‘ Emory and Henry. Many bright pulpit-lights have been 
kindled at her altars' 

“ Rev. Samuel W. Small of Atlanta will respond.” 

[By accident the manuscript of the reply of Mr. Small to 
this sentiment has been misplaced. We can give only the 
following brief outline of his touching, brilliant speech. In 
all of his platform-work, we feel confident he never surpassed 
this effort.] 

Mr. Small arose, and began with an anecdote in his riches 
vein, of an old “darkey’s” being arraigned for stealing 


* 


68 


chickens. While protesting his innocence vigorously, the 
veritable rooster, which he was accused of stealing, stuck his 
head from out a hole in his old, long, baggy coat-tail, and 
crew lustily. The old negro turned helplessly to the judge, 
and said, “ ’Fore de Lord, de man wha’ put dat chicken in my 
pocket, wunt no fren’ uv mine.” Mr. Small said, the man 
that put him down to speak to the sentiment, “ Many bright 
pulpit-lights have been kindled at her altars,” was certainly 
no friend of his. “If there are any here,” said he, “who 
remember my college-days in these historic shades, they 
will scarcely see the fitness of my standing up as a repre¬ 
sentative of the ‘pulpit-lights’ that have been kindled here. 
I carried and kindled other kinds of beacons in those days. 
And yet, next to the sermon of Rev. Sam Jones, which led 
me so powerfully to the altar of God, I can trace my strong¬ 
est religious convictions to Emory and Henry College; to 
one sermon especially, preached by you [turning to Dr. 
Wiley, sitting near him], and afterwards published in ‘ The 
Southern Pulpit,’ on the text, ‘ Wherewithal shall a young 
man cleanse his way ? ’ That sermon sowed seeds of re¬ 
pentance and love in my heart that lived to bear fruit. But 
as a humble representative of a bright company of conse¬ 
crated men, who, with tongue and pen, are following the 
steps of the lowly Nazarene, I stand before you to-day,— 
men who, throughout our Christian land, from the ice-girt 
North, sweeping past the Mexic sea, far out to the Golden 
Gate, are standing up for God and the right. Their lips 
have been touched with a live coal from off the sacred altar, 
set up here, and, with tongue aflame, they are proclaiming 
the tidings of the gospel of the Son of God. In their honor 
and in their praise, I would speak a word this afternoon, not 
forgetting the dear old mother, who placed the sword in 
their hands, and ‘ shod them with the preparation of the 
gospel.’ ” With this little introduction, Mr. Small spoke at 
some length of the work Emory and Henry had done in the 
education of young men for the ministry. He spoke of how 
they had gone out to the different Southern States, advancing 
their cause, and blessing their fellow-men. He described 
each of the States from Virginia, on through South Carolina, 








* 





JNO. L. BUCHANAN, LL.D 



Wmm 


1 


H 

m 




N 











































































































6 9 


Georgia, Texas, Colorado, to California, in a perfect bead- 
roll of choice and eloquent description, ending each with a 
touching allusion to the work of the preacher-boys from 
Emory and Henry in those fields. He then took bolder 
wing, and crossed the seas to China and Japan, where the 
heads of the Southern Methodist missions in both those 
countries are Emory and Henry men. The description of 
these countries, taking in the islands of the sea, where “ even 
there our lights are burning,” was indeed happy. He then 
swept round through Brazil, where Emory and Henry men 
were at work in the mission-fields, winding up with Mexico, 
“ where the traditions of the great Aztec civilization still live, 
and — 

‘A thousand years their cloudy wings expand.’ ” 

He closed with a beautiful and glowing tribute to the college, 
and a prophetic glance at the final triumph of the gospel, 
when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
the waters cover the sea, — putting it in the form of an alle¬ 
gory or beatific vision of the personified virtues, triumphant, 
of which it is not too much to say that it was touched with 
the warmth and precision of detail of Bunyan, and the calm 
beauty of Keats. 

VI. The sixth sentiment — 

“ Emory and Henry. The public schools have reflected 
her light ” — 

was proposed, and responded to by Dr. John L. Buchanan, 
State Superintendent of Schools for Virginia. We regret 
being unable to furnish this happy little speech. Many old 
students will remember this able, gifted gentleman as the 
former professor of Latin and Greek in Emory and Henry. 
He is one of the brightest and best platform-talkers in the 
State. 

VII. At the conclusion of Dr. Buchanan’s remarks, the 
toast-master introduced the seventh sentiment by saying, — 

“ We have learned from these eloquent and loyal responses, 
what our Alma Mater has accomplished in the first half- 
century of her existence. What will she accomplish in the 
next half-hundred years ? 


70 


“ ‘ May her next fifty years be as bright as the past! * 

“ Will our friend, B. B. Comer of Alabama, prophesy of the 
future ?” 

Mr. Comer arose and said, — 

“ The past is what a present time was ; the future what 
a present time will be. As you make the present, so will 
the past be. As you make the present, so will the future 
be. The present is deformed by its actual appearance, while 
both the past and future are arrayed in all the enchant¬ 
ments that distance proverbially lends. The present is seen 
as if through a telescope reversed, the distant through the 
lenses that most magnify. Looking back beyond history, 
even to the time when tradition and mythology alone 
chronicled the facts of the universe, we find the age of 
Methuselah put down at nearly fifty-score years. Compare 
this with our threescore and ten, and we become infants ; 
but maybe, if we were in the time of Methuselah, and could 
have known his age, shorn of the fabulosity that tradition 
gives, it might come down to the age of Washington’s oldest 
servant. Caesar comes to us, as one of the mightiest men 
that mighty Rome deified. Carry the present back to him, 
and place by his side Aaron Burr, and we would' reckon 
them both as traitors. I remember once in a Calliopean 
debate, the subject was, ‘ Who was the greatest man ? ’ 
Collins, the son of our first president, took John Howard; 
the brilliant Fulton, Napoleon; and I, the Great Frederick. 
After exhausting our hero-worship, John Buchanan, arguing 
the negative, and dissecting the character of each, showed so 
many mean qualities that the question was decided in the 
negative. And so it ever is : there are weaknesses, deformi¬ 
ties, that time alone will obscure. And so when we compare 
the present and future with the past, Dr. Collins with Dr. 
Wiley, Dr. Wiley with President Jordan, the past fifty with the 
next fifty years, we must bring the charity of justice to the com¬ 
parison. Not that President Jordan and his associates require 
this, when juxtapositioned with the old faculties; not that 
the next fifty years, now at its birth, is a starveling from the 
beginning; not that Emory and Henry is now unprepared to 


place white tops in intellect amid every community that gives 
her students. You have the same beautiful surroundings, 
the same recitation-rooms with the same hard benches, and 
sometimes greasy blackboards, the same boarding-houses, 
and, I doubt not, just as good apple-butter and juicy steaks, 
as when she turned out embryo big farmers, judges, states¬ 
men, Congressmen, Churchmen, generals, and us boys. I 
have thought, if you could run a cross-section of mountains 
at both ends of this valley, that you would have Dr. Johnson’s 
Happy Valley, and that, even without the cross-section, the 
kings of the country could send their sons here, as the place 
the farthest removed from the world’s vices. Again, this is 
Virginia; and just as the blue-grass regions of Kentucky 
stand the unchallenged pasture-ground of thoroughbred 
horses, — fancy strains of trotters and racers tracing their 
sires or dams to that world-renowned horseland,—just so in 
the refinement of gentility, in the excellency of intellect, 
Virginia stands the unrivalled birth-ground of America ; and 
surely, if there be a Pierian spring, it would not require the 
credulity of Ponce de Leon to commence the search here. 
If you could make a Byars, P'ulton, Findlay, Davis, Smith, 
Haskeir, and others of our illustrious progenitors, out of the 
alumni present; if you could interest the neighboring citizen 
and the church to carry on the work they commenced, — then 
our Alma Mater will at the end of the century be like Bar¬ 
tholdi’s monument to ‘ Liberty enlightening the world ’ with 
the brilliancy of intellect unchained from ignorance. We have 
in full view the highest peak of the Blue Ridge: may you, 
Mr. President, make Emory and Henry the highest college 
in the lyceums of the country! May you, with a full cata¬ 
logue of students, build, for yourselves and our common 
mother, a half-century of unparalleled success! For more 
than twenty-five years, Dr. Wiley and associates built models 
of himself out of his matriculates, and sent them, not as 
statuary, but as men, to become model-makers through the 
States of the South. He made a catalogue of names now 
illustrious; and that catalogue still continues the fashioning 
of other names after the same model, because, like the work 
of the Great Architect, it was seen to be good. Mr. President, 


72 


when time comes to you to stay, as it has with him ; when 
half the fifty years of which we are speaking has witnessed 
the impress of your mind and principles upon that many 
classes, — may you, as he did, transfuse the presidency into one 
of your boys, and thus, by induction, continue Dr. Wiley in 
the presidency for the next fifty years, securing, as it would, 
the future like the past. Dr. Wiley and his associates live 
in the alumni present. Now, gentlemen of the alumni, we 
can only hope that the addition to our body for the next fifty 
years will be up to our standard; and let our last word be, 
to our old fellow-student, Jordan, ‘ Old fellow, make them like 
us!’” 

VIII. The last speaker of the occasion was Governor 
Fitz-Hugh Lee of Virginia. It was a great treat to have him 
“grace our board.” Col. Shumate introduced the governor 
about as follows : — 

“The chief glory of a State is in her distinguished sons. 
The list of distinguished Virginians is so great, that even a 
partial enumeration of them would weary your patience. I 
may but allude to the author of the ‘ Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence,’ to the father of the Constitution, and to the suc¬ 
cessful leader of the first revolution, of whom Light-Horse 
Harry first said, ‘First in war, first in peace, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen,’—praise that, with equal truth, 
might have applied to the distinguished son of ‘ Light-Horse 
Harry and the unsuccessful leader of the second revolution,’ 
says Lord Wolsely. I announce, — 

‘ The Old Dominion .’ 

Will the chief magistrate of the Old Dominion honor us with 
a response ? ” 

Gov. Lee arose, and spoke somewhat as follows : — 
Gentlemen of the Alumni , — 

I knew something of the work done by Emory and Henry 
College before I came here. I have also numbered among 
my acquaintances some of her noble and brave sons. But 
now, I confess, I know a great deal more of her history ; and 
after the cordial and brotherly greeting I have received at the 



FITZ-HUGH LEE 





















































































































































































* 






























73 


hands of her alumni to-day, as I look into your faces, I feel 
familiar with you all, and count each of you a personal friend. 
Yes, I might say that before this worthy and dignified body 
I now feel as much at home as was the soldier with Gen. 
Hardee. Gen. Hardee was a strict disciplinarian author 
of a “Manual of Tactics ” for the Southern armies. He 
believed in every man sticking close to the letter of the law, 
and being accurate in all the movements and salutes. Espe¬ 
cially, in his judgment, were officers to be treated with great 
deference. One day, being without attendants, he passed a 
sentinel. The soldier paid no attention to him, but continued 
to shuffle along his beat, with his gun in the hollow of his 
arm. The general turned around and repassed him, thinking 
he would surely salute him this time. The man went on his 
way, and hardly looked up. Thereupon, Hardee walked 
straight up to him, and said, “ I see, sir, you don’t know 
who I am. I am Gen. Hardee, Commander of the Army.” 
— “ByJoe!” said the soldier. “ I am Bill Dickenson, Fourth 
Arkansaw, — glad to see you.” [Laughter and loud applause.] 
And, gentlemen, I feel like saying to you, with the soldier, 
that to-day I am Fitz Lee, and I am glad to see you. 
[Renewed applause.] 

When asked to respond to “ The Old Dominion,” my mind 
naturally reverts to the days, as an old friend of mine in 
Scott County expressed it, when “John Smith killed Poca¬ 
hontas and then coming on down, the scenes that are trav¬ 
ersed, and the names that are called up, are enough to make 
any heart bound with the greatness of his old State. It is 
a pleasure to me to recall the grand old colony from which 
the State was made — to recall the sinewy energy of the 
Jamestown settlement, the stolid bravery of the forest scout, 
the gallantry of Washington and his Virginia regiments 
planting the flag on Fort Duquesne, and, along with it all, 
that chivalrous courtesy and love for the ladies that would 
lead the old Virginia cavalier to ride twenty miles to throw a 
rose into his lady-love’s window. But all this was only in¬ 
timations of greatness to come. American liberty found its 
orator in Virginia’s Henry, its author in Virginia’s Jefferson, 
and its warrior in Virginia’s Washington. And this grand 


74 


trio were only the central stars in a constellation of brilliant 
names which were enough to make sacred the soil of any 
land. I wish I had the time to dwell on Virginia’s great 
history ; but it is growing late, and I must hurry on and speak 
a word of the present, to which we owe our first duty. I am 
glad to say to-day, that while Virginia has recently passed 
through a struggle more severe and dreadful than any in her 
history, and while her property was destroyed, her best energy 
expended, and dearest blood shed, in the war for Constitutional 
Liberty, she has cheerfully made the best of it, has accepted 
the result of that struggle as summed up by Chief Justice 
Waite, — “An indissoluble Union of indestructible States,” 
— and, with a devotion to the land and Constitution of the 
fathers no less true than theirs, she is marching in the great 
column of material and industrial development. The Old 
Dominion is not sulking in a corner. She did not fight to 
makegood Confederate money. But, rising from her ruins in 
the consciousness of duty done as God gave her to see it, she 
accepts the decision of the appeal to arms, and is going to 
work to make to bloom, like the rose, her waste places. All 
around success is crowning her efforts. The material growth 
of the South is attracting the attention of the world. As in 
war, so in peace, may our Old Dominion never be found fall¬ 
ing out of line. I call upon you, who have gone out from this 
old Virginia college, to work for her welfare, and guard 
sacredly her heritage of glory and honor. 

Note. — Gov. Lee spoke without notes, and we regret we could not 
give in full his fine speech. 

When the speaking was over, letters from several distin¬ 
guished alumni were read: among them, we lay before our 
readers the following : — 

LETTERS FROM ABSENT ALUMNI, 
i. Letter from Gen . Horatio C. King of New-York City . 

New York, May 9, 1887. 

Dr. Samuel M. Barton, Chairman of Committee , Emory , Va. 

My dear Sir, — My employment in a protracted trial has delayed 
a reply to your esteemed favor received about a week ago. I have 


75 


also delayed in the hope that I might be able to make my arrange¬ 
ments so that I could be present on the delightful occasion of the 
semi-centennial anniversary of the college with which so many of my 
happiest recollections are connected; but the Court of Appeals, 
which has adjourned to June, cuts off my expectations, and I most 
reluctantly send my regrets that I cannot be present. 

I see upon the list of the members, two, at least, of the Faculty 
who were connected with the institution when I was there in 1851,— 
Dr. Wiley and Professor Longley. I remember that, without the 
slightest disrespect, and without the least appropriateness, we called 
the former “ Old Ephe ; ” the reference to his age would be more to 
the point now, though I have no doubt that he still retains the same 
youthful appearance and activity which he manifested while I was a 
boy under his care. I wonder, too, if Professor Longley still bears 
the sobriquet of “ Old Brit,” which was bestowed upon him because 
of his devotion to a red dressing-gown. It may not be known to you 
that he had himself adopted the title; for when he was postmaster, 
and while the post-office was held in one wing of the college, we 
found posted on the inside of the glass door of the post-office a 
rhyme in these words : — 

“ There will be no mail to-day, 

For Old Brit has gone away.” 

He always knew, both how to crack and appreciate a joke. He 
was at that time professor of belles-lett?'es. On one rather rough and 
stormy night, Dick Semmes, a pretty lively boy, was caught by the 
professor in the belfry violently ringing the college-bell. The professor, 
quite excited, said to him, “ Mr. Semmes, what are you doing here? ” 
to which came the prompt reply, “Studying belles-lettres , sir.” A 
broad smile enveloped the professor’s face; and he answered, “ Go to 
your room, sir: your wit is all that has saved you.” Perhaps, after 
all, this is not the same Longley, and that the dear old professor has 
gone to his long home; but in any event I trust that the allusion will 
not be without interest. 

Please present my kindest regards to the members of the Faculty 
and to all friends who may remember me, and again accept the assur¬ 
ance of my sincere regret that I am debarred the pleasure of being 
with you. 

Very truly yours, 


HORATIO C. KING. 


;6 


2. Letter from Rev. J. M. Sharpe of Mexico. (A great 
friend of the college, and an able minister and scientist. He 
is now engaged in silver-mining.) 

May 12, 1887. 

Professor T. W. Jordan, President Emory and Henry College, 

Emory, Fz. 

Dear Sir, — In answer to your esteemed favor of 4th ult., I regret 
to say that it is impossible to be present at the semi-centennial of 
Emory and Henry College. How I wish that I could be there to 
see, to hear, and even to be heard ! 

From the Pacific Slope of the Sierra Madre, rich in minerals and 
grand in scenery, I greet you, your honored Board and Joint Board 
of Trustees, your worthy corps of professors, and your noble band 
'of recruits; while I salute my brethren, the Alumni, and all the 
veteran students of our revered Alma Mater, June 7, 1887. 

Emory and Henry College, on the hill above the spring, near the 
valley, the friend of the poor young man, deserves — well deserves — 
in her history, work, and results, this proud memorial day; and as 
long as the valley is beautiful, the hill stands, and the spring flows, 
may her worthy sons celebrate her annuals, semi-centennials, and 
centennials ! To this end I propose to the Aluiimi and six thousand 
old students all over our broad land, That Emory and Henry College 
shall ever have place in our hearts and in our plans as she 
deserves. A short time since, a lucky strike made me believe for 
forty-eight hours that I was a millionnaire; but Emory and Henry 
College was not forgotten. The bonanza may yet come. Ojala ! 
Emory and Henry College shall not be any the poorer. My heart 
is fixed. IA Dios ; y tambien adios / 

Yours truly, 

J. M. SHARPE. 

3. Letter from Col. William E. Peters, professor of Latin in 
the University of Virginia. (Col. Peters was once professor 
of Latin in Emory and Henry College.) 

University of Virginia, June 1, 1887. 

Gentlemen of the Faculty of Emery and Henry College, — I 
have delayed replying to your kind invitation to attend the exer¬ 
cises in celebration of your semi-centennial anniversary, in the hope 
that I might be able to do so. I now find that this is impos*ble. 
I learned from the great and good men who taught me while a stu- 


77 


dent there, to consult duty first; and in obedience to that teaching, I 
must deny myself the great pleasure of meeting with the alumni who 
visit the scenes of their joys and hopes, upon the pleasant walks and 
under the classic shades of our dear old Alma Mater. 

Though absent, I send you my greeting, and most earnest good 
wishes for the prosperity and increased usefulness of Emory and 
Henry College. 

Sincerely yours, 

WM. E. PETERS. 


Third. Day: Wednesday, Jane S. 


This was the regular Commencement Day. After the 
speeches of the graduates, the prominent event of the day 
took place, being the annual address before the Calliopean 
and Hermesian Literary Societies. This year it was deliv¬ 
ered by Judge H. H. Ingersoll of Knoxville, Tenn. We give 
it in full. 

A TALK TO COLLEGE BOYS. 

While casting about for a topic for this address, an alum¬ 
nus of this college, whose friendship I have tried, and whose 
opinion I value, urged me, “ Give the boys a practical talk: 
they know nothing of real life, and will gladly listen to one 
who does.” I was reminded by this suggestion of my own 
experience in the world in dealing with men, my missteps, 
losses, and chagrin because of my ignorance of human nature ; 
my indignation that a corps of wise educators should have 
launched me on the sea of life so poorly equipped for the 
voyage, —a cargo of Greek roots, logarithms, and metaphysi¬ 
cal speculations; no compass or chart to steer by, but only 
the stars for guides, and they concealed when the clouds 
were thickest and needs were greatest: and I recalled, too, 
my resolve, that, when I became rich, the boys at Yale should 
no longer be without practical instruction, but there should be 
endowed a chair of common sense, whose occupant should 
qualify the alumni for actual living, by instructing the stu¬ 
dents in the mysteries of human nature. 

Vain thought! Fruitless resolve! Wealth was not to be 
my fortune, because not my aim. I was called to the law, 
and to a lawyer’s career, —to work hard, live well, and die 
poor. But I trust some merchant, speculator, banker, or sen- 



79 


ator has endowed the chair of common sense at Yale, and in 
other schools ; and that the average alumnus is not still the 
most helpless of mortals. 

Against such a preparation for life, I beg leave here to 
enter my earnest protest, and to express my hope for a better 
course. 

Long ago, Archdeacon Paley wrote, “Education should 
comprehend every preparation that is made in youth for the 
sequel of our lives.” 

And coincident with this view of the great Churchman is 
that of the greater layman, Mr. .Herbert Spencer, thus ex¬ 
pressed : “ To prepare us for complete living is the function 
which education has to discharge.” 

How well the present college curriculum is adapted fo r 
this end, is not my purpose now to discuss. 

I shall assume that here, as elsewhere, the art of education 
is far behind the science of it; and that much time and 
energy are wasted on subjects and in methods which teachers 
themselves do not approve ; and that now, as a quarter of a 
century ago, the graduate leaves college, learned in Greek, 
Latin, mathematics, and metaphysics, and but little taught 
in the great problem which comprehends all lesser and special 
problems, and which everyone must solve for himself, — How 
shall I live ? And having seen so many ingenuous youths, 
alumni and others, make shipwreck of life, the most from not 
knowing, and others, alas ! from not caring, how to live, I 
am constrained to take my friend’s advice, and embracing 
this my first, and possibly my only, opportunity, talk to you 
to-day like an elder to his younger brothers, as Bobbie Burns 
did to his youthful friend, — 

“ Tho’ it should serve no other end 
Than just a kind memento ; 

But how the subject-theme may gang, 

Let time and chance determine ; 

Perhaps it may turn out a sang, 

Perhaps turn out a sermon.” 

How to live, — not exist merely, but live completely in all 
the relations of life, as man, husband, father, citizen, and 
neighbor ; how to treat the body, the mind, the soul; how to 


8 o 


exercise all the faculties ; how to render active all the func¬ 
tions ; how to be useful and good and happy, and thus make 
others so, — to prepare for this is the “be-all and end-all” 
of education ; and your career in life depends on your solu¬ 
tion of this problem. 

And whether you accept Spencer’s analysis of preparation, 
— into that for direct self-preservation, indirect self-preserva¬ 
tion, parenthood, citizenship, and culture, — or prefer some 
other, the body is the first thing you must care for. 

Preachers may teach, as preachers have taught, to despise 
this tenement of clay. And dead, it may decay, and become 
food for worms ; but living, I reverence it as a part of man, — 
the lowest though it be. Through it only can I make myself 
known, and through it only do I know my friend. Through 
it I may “commune with Nature in her visible forms,” — the 
landscape and rainbow, the ocean and mountain; through it 
I may enjoy art, — the beauties of painting and statuary; and 
through it comes 16 the soul the strains of sweetest music, 
the songs of birds, the carols of childhood, the melody of the 
flute, and the harmony of the organ. Mortal it may be; but 
living, it is instinct with the spirit, a sort of sacred tabernacle 
with Urim and Thummim, a holy temple of the living soul: 
and, I pray you, guard it and care for it, and keep it holy! 

But can you? Do you know how? You have tried its 
powers somewhat, you know something of its capabilities : you 
may endure heat and cold and fatigue like Catiline ; you may 
run as fast as O’Leary, and jump as far as Washington (in his 
traditional trial fora wife), lift as much as Winship, and throw 
like a centre-fielder. I trust you can : I admire the athlete. 
He may not be as strong as an ox, nor as agile as a cat, as 
swift as a thoroughbred, nor as graceful as a gazelle. But 
physically he may be the superior of all by the happy combi¬ 
nation of qualities. Naturally, man is their superior,—the 
most perfect of animals. By training, he may maintain and 
increase his superiority. He ought to do so, and be in fact 
as in name the best animal of all creation. I relish the wit 
of the jests aimed at college athletics, but I have no fear that 
the American student will ever become too much of a man. 

Practise gymnastics, young gentlemen, and all the manly 


Si 


sports, neglecting not the manly art of self-defence. It will 
give you strength and self-reliance, and may serve you many 
a good turn in life. The possession of power usually suffices. 
Its exercise is rarely needed. Physical power commands 
respect from men. The bully bows to the man who can fell 
him with his fist. 

Our English cousins are wiser than we in this regard. 
They care more for life and health than we, —their own health 
and the lives of their fellow-men. An offensive word is not 
answered with a pistol-shot; nor is a human life destroyed, a 
home made desolate, women widowed or children orphaned, 
except as a last resort in necessary self-defence. Their motto 
is, “Hard words break no bones.” But no people are more 
manly or ready for self-defence than they. And, when neces¬ 
sary, none can hit harder, or endure more. These personal 
traits make national character. 

Their fondness for manly sports has made them the most 
sturdy and robust people on earth. I admire English manli¬ 
ness, and would have you attain to it, as much as I detest 
English mannerism, and despise their feeble American 
imitators. Adopt and cultivate English virtues, avoid their 
vices, and eschew their faults. Essentially and entirely be 
American ! 

I was reared in the faith of muscular Christianity, — that 
success in life requires health, and that, to be healthy, one 
must be strong; nor have I departed from the faith. 

But experience and observation, here as elsewhere, have 
modified my views; and I am willing in my athletic creed to 
substitute, for muscular strength, vitality as the chief end of 
physical culture. And again I ask, do you know how to pre¬ 
serve the body against the thousand and one ills that flesh is 
heir to ? For no less in body than in soul will you find man’s 
total depravity, and that the sins of the parents are visited 
upon the children to the third and fourth generation. 

You have learned, perhaps, — if not, you should know, — of 
the circulation of the blood, and that pure air, food, and water 
are the sine qua non of good living; that you must guard 
against all intemperance and excess, of food not less than) 
drink, as the inveterate foes of health; that for fevers the 


82 


antidote is quinine, for small-pox the preventive is vaccina¬ 
tion, and from cholera the only escape is flight. 

But do you know the nature and constitution of your own 
bodies, — their anatomy and physiology ? and, above all, are 
you expert in hygiene ? Do you know your own special ten¬ 
dencies to disease, and how to counteract them ? Of the 
myriads of spores, microbes, and other germs of disease that 
float in air and water, and infest food itself, eager to enter the 
body, and attack the very citadel of life ? And are you pre¬ 
pared to re*sist them ? Can you stanch a wound, or stop a 
hemorrhage ? Revive a swooned friend, or recuperate one 
drowned? In short, do you know yourself? Or have you 
learned the history of Egypt and of Babylon, of India and of 
China, and of all antiquity ; the dead languages of the Greeks 
and Romans ; the philosophy of Aristotle and Bacon, and 
the systems of Copernicus and Kepler; the doctrines of 
Leibnitz and Kant, of Hamilton and Reid ; the creeds of 
Calvin and Wesley, — and ignored the old Greek’s injunction, 
rvwOiGeavrov ? 

If so, pause and learn yourselves! Now is the accepted 
time. Give Greek and Latin to the winds. Let Demos¬ 
thenes chew pebbles, and Cicero harangue his clients ; leave 
geometry to Euclid, and metaphysics to Spinoza, and for a 
while care for yourselves. Know yourselves, especially your 
bodies, and then may you minister at the altar of their preser¬ 
vation. 

Meanwhile, for your guidance, till you shall have learned 
from Spencer or Huxley, or your family physician, — who will 
be your best friend if only you will let him, — permit me to 
give you a few practical suggestions and admonitions. 

Take care of your stomach, your skin, and your lungs, and 
they will take care of you. 

Eat only agreeable food, and what you need. That it 
should be properly cooked, goes without saying. Down in 
Tennessee they have a saying, “The Lord sends the victuals, 
and the Devil sends the cooks,” which, I am happy to testify, 
is false in South-west Virginia, the land of good cooks, whose 
light and wholesome breads, and tender, juicy meats, have long 
been a joyous treat and a glorious memory to me. 


83 


But that we cannot neglect this matter of diet with 
impunity, witness the hundred dyspeptics here present, and 
the hundred of thousands in this nation of dyspeptics, who 
revel in pork and pie, green tea and mean whiskey, hot 
biscuit and fried meat, with equally bad taste and pernicious 
results alike to body and soul. I pray you avoid them. Uni¬ 
form diet cannot be prescribed for all. What is food for one, 
may be poison to another. Eat what agrees with you. Ill 
fares the day when the stomach becomes the alter ego. May 
you be long unconscious of its existence! And that you may 
be, treat it according to the Golden Rule. Do not impose 
upon it. If you do, it will rebel. In the process of digestion, 
the first step only is voluntary. But it is most important. 
For it, you are directly responsible. Therefore, young gentle¬ 
men, take time, and masticate. 

For the skin, that wonderful tissue of clothing for the body, 
with its hundred thousand pores, I bespeak regular attention 
and vigorous treatment daily, with soap and water if conven¬ 
ient, but, whether or no, with mitten and brush. It will 
open the pores, increase the capillary circulation, and thus 
that of the entire body, give you a healthy glow, and send the 
life-blood tingling to every fibre of the body, and warm you 
into active, vigorous life. You will rejoice in. the very 
sense of existence. Headache and dulness will fly away, 
tasks will become easy, and labors welcome, and the whole 
nervous system will express to you its gratitude for favor 
done by the sense of exquisite pleasure and comfort you will 
enjoy. 

For the lungs, I repeat the recommendation of old Peter 
Pindar Stewart, — maker of the first American cooking-stove, 
— who kept consumption at bay for a half-century by its use. 
Take rough horseback exercise daily when you can. And 
when you cannot, then substitute a like movement of the body 
by springing on the toes while slowly and deeply respiring, 
and in walking, inspire deeply during four steps, hold the 
lungs full for the next four; expire slowly during four more, 
and then take four with empty lungs. This will send the life¬ 
blood to the capillaries of the lungs, there to meet and bathe 
in the pure, fresh oxygen, and return to the body again to 


84 

run its course like a bounding racer, carrying life and joy to 
every part of the body. 

To-day, young gentlemen, I trust you do not feel the need 
of this counsel. You should be now vigorous and strong. 
I would have you remain so to a green old age ; and hence 
my prescription to preserve vital energy, and help you to live 
long and happily. In your present abounding health, you 
may laugh at my serious counsel: it is the sick who need a 
physician. True. But sickness comes to every man, and 
death. The young man may die, the old must die. I esteem 
life a boon to be cherished, and health a blessing to be nour¬ 
ished. Nothing thrives in this world without care and atten¬ 
tion,— except thistles and plague. The good is bought only 
with effort and price. What costs nothing is worth nothing. 
The time will come, and no man knows how soon, when he 
shall need sword and buckler for salvation. Be ye always 
ready. Waste no,vitality. Keep it in store as a sure de¬ 
fence against time to come. Strength and vigor easily repel 
assaults to which weakness succumbs. Forewarned is fore¬ 
armed. Whatsoever your vocation in life, you shall need 
health ; and to every man come the moments of exposure, of 
weakness, of faintness and despair. In these gloomy days, 
both soul and body must needs nerve themselves for strife. 
If he yields, the man can easily die. Many a man has kept 
Death standing outside the door for years with the shutter of 
Will, I know. But alone, Will fights a one-handed battle. 
Will and Strength allied may hold the fort till the fulness of 
time is come ; and you may live happy, useful lives “ till 
bairns’ bairns kindly cuddle your auld gray hairs,” —a cheer¬ 
ful, helpful band whom men delight to meet, whose very 
presence encourages and brightens, even unto life’s end. 

This is a universe of law, — not chance. Health hath its 
laws, which we violate at our peril. Obedience is better than 
sacrifice. Disobedience brings suffering, — not to-day, per¬ 
haps, but some time and surely. Whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap. Sow wild oats, if you will, but know, 
while sowing, what the harvest shall surely be! Lastly, I 
beseech you, never debase, degrade, or debauch the body. 
Keep it always clean and pure, — a fit temple for the indwell- 


85 


ing* of the Spirit. Keep it erect and manly, as becomes the 
lord of created things. Don’t be stooping or prone, but 
stand upright as you were made in the image of the Creator. 
Let your bodily bearing tell of the courageous soul within, 
and your fellows witness, as you pass by, “There goes a 
man.” 

My own mental experience in those few years following 
graduation brought me to the conclusion that I had too much 
discipline and too little acquisition,—a case of over-training 
of the mind, — as much my own fault, doubtless, as the 
teachers’, for I preferred athletics to literature ; and twenty- 
five years’ exemption from sickness, perhaps, should banish 
regrets. But painful appreciation of the loss of many an 
hour of youthful enjoyment and profit in the company of the 
great and good of earth, hours of joy forever gone, urges me 
to say to you, Carpe diem. 

Food, nutriment, is essential to growth. Exercise, disci¬ 
pline, may harden, toughen, and render expert. But Greek 
roots, Latin inflexions, algebraic theorems, or logical sorites, 
are poor food for growth. For this, take literature,— the 
great garner wherein has been gathered the choicest grains 
and fruits from richest fields and vineyards of earth. Don’t 
think of it as a locked and bolted chest of musty meal and 
withered grapes. Nothing farther from the truth! The 
wheat may be old, but it is as sound and germinant as that 
taken from the Egyptian mummy’s bed. The bottles may 
be mouldy : old wine is best. The wit of Horace, and humor 
of Aristophanes, are as bright and fresh to-day as when first 
they sparkled forth. And the wisdom of Plato can never 
grow old. But I do not urge you to these, though Emerson 
says, “ In Plato you shall find the germs of all thought.” 
Stay nearer home. In your own language are the brightest 
treasures of thought and speech, and here you may find 
whatever you want. 

You delight in a spicy lecture; you are moved by a grand 
sermon ; you are touched by a poem, or thrilled by an ora¬ 
tion ; you are charmed by the conversation of a friend, or 
convulsed by the humor of a racotiteuv. You regret when 
they are done, and hope to meet the authors and actors again. 


86 


Be assured; young gentlemen, that none of these things you 
have heard are so entertaining, instructive, or amusing as 
you may read in good books. 

And you may, if you will, live always in an atmosphere of 
delight, wisdom, joy, or fun, as you may choose, and that of 
the best quality and flavor among the books. Herein are en¬ 
shrined the best thoughts and sayings of the best and wisest, 
funniest and wittiest, of all ages and all lands. And here 
you will find the best of food, the most nutritious and tooth¬ 
some, and the choicest wines for refreshment. History, 
biography, science and art, religion and philosophy, drama 
and poetry, all are here; and no higher enjoyment, no 
keener pleasure, no livelier fun, no weightier wisdom, can 
be found elsewhere. Supplement your studies with the 
recreations of literature, and you will come from college 
wiser and happier men. 

But the field is wide, and you may well ask what to read. 
My prescription for mind and body is one : Take what you 
like. Taste is a good guide. Usually you will crave what 
you need; and you may not, either mentally or bodily, ignore 
with impunity the prompting of the appetites. My wise old 
friend here shakes his head at the thought of man’s depravity, 
and the duty to crucify the body and chasten the mind. 

And you will find it safest and easiest to agree with him, 
and travel the prescribed and circumscribed course of read¬ 
ing and thought, if you can do so. 

“Where ignorance is bliss, 

’Tis folly to be wise.” 

But if your free spirits will transgress prescribed and 
narrow boundaries of thought; if you will leave the beaten 
paths, and wander in meadows green, and in forest and 
glade ; nay, if you will venture to climb the mountain peaks 
of thought, and dare the dangers of cliff and chasm, and 
lightning and tempest; if you have resolved to eat of the 
fruit of the tree of knowledge, whether bitter or.sweet, as is 
the tendency in youth, and as many have done before you, 
— still, it is best to take the service of a guide, at least for 
general direction. You want clean grain, not chaff. The 


87 


generations have been winnowing for you all the harvests of 
the past: choose chiefly the classical. The critics to-day are 
surely sifting every annual crop, and the heaps of trash are 
appalling. Life is too short to be spent in chaff-piles: here 
wheat is as cheap as chaff. 

I take leave to recommend some books and authors for 
company. And mind — I commend them, not because they 
ought to be read. Boys tire of ought. They chafe under 
dictation. They rejoice in liberty,—liberty of thought. 
And surely, here in this grand old Commonwealth, made 
sacred by the birth; residence, and death of its greatest 
apostle, men may enjoy liberty, — enjoy it in the spirit of 
Huxley, the greatest of modern scientists: “ The liberty I 
demand, is the liberty to do right: the liberty to do wrong, 
I would gladly surrender to any one who will take it.” 

Many pious people fear the influence of Darwin, Huxley, 
and Spencer upon the young, asserting that they teach irre- 
ligion, and promote scepticism. This class was more abun¬ 
dant in the days of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, 
and even of Humboldt, Agassiz and Hugh Miller. And yet 
the Christian world accepts as established truths the teach¬ 
ings of all these former “free-thinkers and infidels,” nor 
has it any more ground to fear the teachings of the scientists 
of to-day. 

“True science and true religion are twin-sisters, and the 
separation of either from the other is sure to prove the death 
of both. Science prospers exactly in proportion as it is 
religious, and religion flourishes in exact proportion to the 
scientific depth and firmness of its basis.” 

Science reigns only within the realms of observation and 
knowledge. To religion belongs the domain of faith. Where 
knowledge can go, there is no room or reason for belief. 
And yet both have co-existed, and will co-exist till man attain 
to the infinite. Enlarge the bounds of knowledge to their 
utmost capacity; exhaust the powers of the microscope in 
the analysis of particles into minutest atoms; pierce the 
heavens with the telescope, and mount above the stars ; cir¬ 
cumnavigate the globe from pole to pole, and descend even 
to the internal fires; encompass the universe, and fill the 


88 


mind to its utmost repletion with scientific knowledge, — and 
yet you may be sure there are heights and depths you will 
never reach with knowledge; there is a sacred infinite 
beyond the ken of man, where faith shall ever reign supreme, 
serene, — a boundless realm of joy and bliss, — 

“ The far-away home of the soul.” 

Have no fear of true science. Read Darwin’s “ Origin 
of Species,” and Spencer’s “ Biology and Education,” and, 
above all, Huxley’s “Lay Sermons.” They’ll teach you how 
to live aright. 

Read novels, — not trash, stuff, dirt, but novels that tell the 
mysteries of human hearts ; to know — 

“ Each chord its various tone, 

Each spring its various bias.” 

Read the Waverley novels of Walter Scott, fountains of 
pure sentiment and true history; read Bulwer’s “ Last Days 
of Pompeii,” “My Novel,” and “ Zanoni,” that wonderful 
tale of the Rosicrucians; read the novels of Thackeray the 
satirist; and do not omit the tender tales of Charles Dickens, 
who has made heroes and heroines of the English poor, and 
who tells us of Micawber and Pickwick and Turveydrop and 
Chadband and Uriah Heep, and a hundred more representa¬ 
tive characters. Of our own novelists, I recommend Haw¬ 
thorne, Cooper, and Cooke. And do not stop till you have 
read Hugo’s chef-d'oeuvre , “ Les Miserables,” the greatest 
of novels. 

There is another class of literature to which I bespeak 
your careful attention. I mean the essayists. None are 
more improving. Macaulay of the sunny style and happy 
thought, and Carlyle the Puritan pantheist and literary 
Titan, the hypocrite-hater and sham-destroyer, are chief of 
the English essayists. But, as stimulants to lofty thought 
and noble endeavor, even their works are inferior to those 
of the prince of American thinkers and essayists, Ralph 
Waldo Emerson. 

If humor you want, read Dr. Holmes and Mark Twain; 
and for wit, Butler’s “Hudibras” and Dean Swift. For the 


8 9 


most perfect and pleasing style of English prose, concurrent 
criticism yields the palm to Addison and Goldsmith, and the 
genial father of American literature, Washington Irving. 

In history, read some standard outline of universal history, 
Guizot’s “History of France,” Green’s “English People,” 
Ridpath’s “ United States,” and “Our Own Times” by 
McCarthy. 

On social subjects, take, besides the essayists already 
mentioned, Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” Summer’s 
“ Social Science,” and “ Politics for Young Americans.” 
And for your boyhood days, read Tom Hughes’s two unique 
books, “ School-days at Rugby,” and “ Tom Brown at Oxford.” 

Among poets, I think you will find Milton, Pope, Byron, 
Hood, and Tennyson as pleasing as profitable; and to the 
young who love the music of rhythmic verse, especially to 
us denizens of the Appalachians, Scott’s “Lady of the 
Lake ” has no superior. Poe, Longfellow, and Bryant take 
first rank among American poets, and are pure in thought 
and style. But I must confess, that, chief among the poets 
who speak the very soul of truth, none hold the keys to 
all the doors of my heart like Shakspeare and Burns,— 
Shakspeare, king of every realm of thought and passion ; 
and Burns, the poet of pathos, whose tender heart could not 
only feel another’s woe, but who could suffer, and, suffering, 
sing in sorrow at sight of the wounded hare, the mousie’s 
house in ruins, or the upturned mountain daisy. 

My list is already long, but not too long to choose from, 
nor too long to read in full in the next ten years, before the 
end of which you may be prepared to make your own selec¬ 
tions from the whole field of literature. But, before closing 
it, I must add one more. 

The English Bible — be not surprised. You may have 
tired of hearing it, — not that you oppose it or despise it, but 
that you have been compelled so much to hear it and read 
it, that you wish the liberty to omit it. Do so if you will. 
Better pass it as a free man than take to it as a slave or a 
hypocrite. But know that, if you ignore it, you lose the 
grandest literature of all ages and people. 

A nobler epic was never written than the Book of Job,— 



90 


the story of the ever-recurring mystery of life, and a discus¬ 
sion of the insoluble problem of evil. In lofty thought, 
deep penetration, exquisite imagery, and eloquent diction, 
this old Hebrew epic stands without a rival. 

“ It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir; with the 
precious onyx or the sapphire.” 

For counsel, no words are wiser than the Proverbs of Solo¬ 
mon and Ecclesiastes, —wiser for this world, I mean. “ They 
give subtlety to the simple, and to the young man knowledge 
and discretion.” 

And what poetry shall excel the Psalms of David ? In 
them have the weary and heavy-laden of all Christendom 
sought rest and consolation : from them orators and poets 
have ever sought inspiration, and to them has been set the 
grandest music of the ages. 

By common consent among Jew and Gentile, Christian and 
Pagan, no biography equals the story of the Christ as told in 
the Gospels : no parables compare with those that Jesus spake 
beside the Galilean sea. Bishops, priests, and deacons, all 
agree that the simplest, grandest, of all sermons is the Sermon 
on the Mount, teaching the fatherhood of God, the brother¬ 
hood of man. 

A model for a speech you shall find in Paul’s defence be¬ 
fore Agrippa; and for an unrivalled style, for wealth of 
illustration, force of argument, terseness of statement, and 
exhaustive analysis, you will find that St. Paul is excelled by 
no writer, ancient or modern. And if, my friends, any of 
you shall doubt the immortality of the soul, as happens, 
alas! to some good people, find an answer to your doubts, a 
refutation of that beggarly belief of annihilation, in that 
incomparable argument in fifteenth chapter of First Corin¬ 
thians : — 

“But some man will say, How are the dead raised up ? and 
with what body do they come ? 

“ Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, ex¬ 
cept it die. . . . 

“ So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in 
corruption ; it is raised in incorruption. ... It is sown a 
natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body. . . . 


9i 


“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality.’ 1 

Of the hundreds of other excellent books on religious sub¬ 
jects, let me commend four which I have found of especial 
merit to youth, — “ Ecce Deus,” “ Ecce Homo,” “ Deus 
Homo,” and “The Manliness of Christ.” 

They present wide phases of that most interesting charac¬ 
ter who for eighteen centuries has commanded the admira¬ 
tion of men of all religions. And for your practice in life, re¬ 
member “Ben Adhem,” who, when told by the angel his name 
was not with those who loved the Lord, said,— 

“ Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.” 

And on the roll of those whom love of God had blest,— 

“ Lo ! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.” 

And now, my young gentlemen, some of you will try the 
world very soon ; and you may, — 

“ Believe me, 

Ye’ll find mankind an unco squad, 

And muckle they may grieve ye! 

For care and trouble set your thought, 

Ev’n when your end’s attained; 

And a’ your views may come to naught, 

When ev’ry nerve is strained. 

I’ll no say men are villains a’; 

The real, harden’d, wicked, 

Wha hae nae check but human law, 

Are to a few restricked — 

But och ! mankind are unco weak, 

An’ little to be trusted ; 

If j-^the wav’ring balance shake, 

It’s rarely right adjusted ! ” 

As Mrs. Partington says, “ We’re all poor creeturs.” 

. Herein, let me assure you, lies the key that will unlock 
nearly all the otherwise inexplicable mysteries of life. You 11 
have daily need to remember this in all your dealings with 
men. Happy will you be if men have no occasion to remem¬ 
ber it of you! 

Those words of Burns in his “ Epistle to a Young Friend ” 


92 


are so full of wisdom that I wish every one of you would 
commit .them to memory, and direct your lives by them. I 
can give no better advice, and so I beg leave to quote still 
further from this little storehouse of wisdom : — 

“ The sacred lowe o’ weel-plac’d love 
Luxuriantly indulge if; 

But never tempt th’ illicit rove, 

Tho’ naething should divulge it. 

I waive the quantum o’ the sin, 

The hazard o’ concealing ; 

But och ! it hardens a’ within, 

And petrifies the feeling. 

To catch dame Fortune’s golden smile, 

Assiduous wait upon her ; 

And gather gear by ev’ry wile 
That’s justified by honor — 

Not for to hide it in a hedge, 

Nor for a train-attendant, 

But for the glorious privilege 
Of being independent! ” 

That’s all of it, — enough to be independent. In these 
days when the ‘‘commercial spirit ” is withering, blasting the 
very souls of men, remember — enough’s enough. 

“ The fear o’ hell’s a hangman’s whip, 

To haud the wretch in order, — 

But where ye feel your honor grip, 

Let that ay be your border; 

It’s slightest touches, instant pause,— 

Debar a’ side pretences ; 

And resolutely keep its laws, 

Uncaring consequences.” 

In the sharp struggle for life in these modern times, in the 
close competition of men for pelf and place and power, how 
strong the temptation to take the prize, or win the victory, 
or gain the goal, — honor or dishonor, — “Uncaring conse¬ 
quences ! ” And how often the lofty standard of the college 
youth is trailed in the dust of disgrace and ignominy to serve 
the present hour! Don’t do it, young gentlemen! Stand 
fast to the dreams of your youth ! 


93 


“ The great Creator to revere, 

Must sure become the creature; 

But still the preaching cant forbear, 

And ev’n the rigid feature.” 

Be honest, boys, under all circumstances, honest with your 
fellows, honest with your Maker, honest with yourselves! - 

Be yourselves and none other! Be manly and true! 
Shams are shameful. Hypocrisy is hateful. If you speak, 
speak the truth as it appears to you, — nothing else. But on 
these matters, speech is not always prudent. Sometimes 
silence is golden. But neither speak nor act a lie, especially 
in such matters. Give me an honest doubter, but never a 
canting saint! 

“ Yet ne’er with wits profane to range, 

Be complaisance extended; 

An Atheist’s laugh’s a poor exchange 
For Deity offended ! 

When ranting round in pleasure’s ring 
Religion may be blinded ; 

Or if she gie a random sting, 

It may be little minded ; 

But when on life we’re tempest-driv’n, 

A conscience but a canker — 

A correspondence fix’d wi’ Heav’n, 

Is sure a noble anchor ! ” 

So thought Burns, and so thinks and feels every man. 

“ In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale 
Are around and above, and his footings do fail, 

And eyesight grows dim, and his friends they depart, 

He’d fain look aloft and be fearless of heart! ” 

So felt the famous infidel of our day, a man of rarest gifts 
of head and heart, of royal intellect and Mercurian speech, 
when, standing with friends at the bier of his beloved brother, 
he uttered that immortal wail of grief —sad and sorrowful, 
but sweet and plaintive as the Traumerie,— 

“ Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks 
of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the 
heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of 
ouAvailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying 


94 


dead, there comes no word; but in the night of death, hope 
sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.” 

That star is the star of Bethlehem, and those rustling 
wings are the wings of the angels that kindly come to bear 
us home. 

Side by side with this epistle of Burns let me place the 
words of counsel which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of 
old Polonius for his son Laertes, as he starts upon his voyage. 
Memorize and follow them too : — 

“The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 

Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steeh 
. . . Beware 

Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, 

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.” 

Don’t be too sensitive or suspicious ! Don’t hunt for an 
insult, nor mistake the true significance of honor! A true 
gentleman will not insult you : none other can. Stay out of 
a quarrel as long as you can. In the language of the law, 
“ Retreat to the wall.” That’s true courage, that’s obedience 
to law ; and, again, obedience is better than sacrifice. But 
being at the wall, with the quarrel thus forced upon you, being 
in the right, and within the law, then let the assailant beware ! 
Strike home and strike hard! But even then, save life if you 
can. 

“ Neither a borrower nor a lender be, 

For loan oft loses both itself and friend.” 

A man of much experience assured me, that, if he were to 
live his life over again, he would never make another accom¬ 
modating loan to a needy friend. “For,” said he, “had I 
pursued that course through life, I should have saved a hun¬ 
dred thousand dollars and five hundred friends ! ” Lastly, — 

“ This above all, — To thine own self be true, 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any man.” 

There lies the secret of all conduct. Be true to yourselves ! 
Entertain a spirit of self-respect! Live by it and die by it! 
Some men will esteem you for your clothing, and some for 



95 


your learning: some will measure you by your purse, and 
others yet will judge you by your speech. Be not deceived. 
These are false and meretricious standards of manhood. 
Keep on good terms with yourselves, whatever others may 
think or do. Be true, noble, sincere, honest men,—-true to 
yourselves and your own convictions. Belong to no man, and 
no company or party of men. Allow no man or party to dic¬ 
tate to you where honor and conscience are involved. “ Let 
all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, thy God’s, and 
truth’s.” Stick to the right. In matters of policy, stand 
with your party inside its principles, and be true and loyal to 
friends. But when public or private honor is involved, never 
truckle to base ends, or bow to the behests of a boss. 

“ God gives no men : a time like this demands 
Strong minds, large hearts, true faith, and willing hands : 

Men whom the lust of office will not kill; 

Men whom, the spoils of office cannot buy ; 

Men who have opinions and a will ; 

Men who have honor; men who will not lie.” 

Be ye such men as this, and thus honor yourselves and 
Alma Mater to your life’s end.* Accept and follow this 
advice of Shakspeare and of Burns, and remember the coun¬ 
sel of Solomon ; and with these three great mentors, you may 
well hope to make a successful voyage of life. 

“ Trust no future, howe’er pleasant; 

Let the dead Past bury its dead; 

Act, act in the living Present, 

Heart within, and God o’erhead/’ 

This the world wants, — this it expects of you. If its 
scholars shall fail, what shall the laity do ? You should be 
an ensample unto them. You will be if you show yourselves 
by action worthy of leadership. If not, you’ll take your place 
in the ranks with the host of followers. 

The problem, young gentlemen, remember, is how to live. 
Feebly and imperfectly I have given you some hints drawn 


9 6 


from the great garner of experience. I trust they may prove 
useful to you now and in the future ; and may you each — 

“ So live that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 

Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.” 


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97 


NOTES AND PERSONALS. 

The graceful form and eloquent tongue of Dr. David 
Sullius was greatly missed by students and visitors. He was 
detained at home by illness in his family. He was to speak 
to “ Our Alumni ” at the lunch, and also to speak before the 
Calliopean Society upon the occasion of the close of its fifti¬ 
eth year. As president of the college from 1880 to 1885, Dr. 
Sullius secured an endowment of about fifty thousand dollars, 
which is now beginning to bear useful fruit. He also brought 
the college prominently before the public again, by his elo¬ 
quent appeals, and stirred up preachers and people to the neces¬ 
sity of maintaining the great school in their midst. An idea 
of the power of this remarkably gifted man can be gathered 
from the toast-master’s remarks in introducing the sentiment, 
“ Many bright pulpit-lights have been kindled at her altars.” 

At the conclusion of the historical sketch of the college 
by Professor Longley on Tuesday, Mr. Joseph B. Anderson of 
Pittsylvania County arose, and in a very happy little speech 
presented Professor Longley with a handsome gold-headed 
cane from the students of the college, as a token of their 
regards for his noble life. Mr. Anderson’s speech on this 
occasion showed himself to be a master of the art of saying 
the right thing in the right manner in the right place. 

Mr. Braxton B. Comer of Alabama, of the class of ’69, 
was voted the best-looking man on the campus. It was hard 
for some of the old students to believe that Comer, who used 
to make so much noise on the fourth floor, was the handsome, 
dignified, and pleasant gentleman, planter, and manufacturer 
before them. 

The fireworks on Tuesday night was a beautiful display. 
From the brow of the cemetery hill, huge rockets went ca¬ 
reering through the darkness. In the lurid light glistened 
and twinkled variegated stars, 

“ Like fire-flies tangled in a silver braid,” 


9 8 


and frameworks of circling fire sent up their gay streamers 
through the night air. This was prepared by the students of 
the college as a relief to the great intellectual feast of the 
day. 

After the pyrotechnic display, the old members of the 
two literary societies assembled in their respective halls, and 
spent the time in calling up old incidents and scenes, and 
commenting upon absent comrades. Speeches were called 
for from prominent members, and bon mots and happy hits 
were the order of the evening. 

Monday afternoon was the annual business meeting of the 
Society of the Alumni. It was characterized by accurateness 
of detail, vim, and good-humor. An address to former stu¬ 
dents of the college was ordered to be prepared by ten mem¬ 
bers present, in order to rekindle their affection for the old 
college, and incite them to good words and works in its 
behalf. It was also decided to erect a gymnasium and taber¬ 
nacle as a place for holding the Commencement exercises. 
Rev. Sam W. Small took charge of this matter, and said he 
would push it to completion. 

The report of the treasurer of the college was called for, 
so as to inform the Society of its financial condition. 

Judge H. H. Ingersoll of Knoxville said, while awarding 
a medal at the Calliopean celebration, that the old Catechism 
ought to be changed, as far as it applied to Emory, from 
“What is the chief duty of man ?” —“To worship God and 
enjoy him forever ” to “ What is the chief duty of man ? ” — 
“To make speeches and enjoy them forever.” 

To make and enjoy speeches has ever been a prominent 
feature of the work of Emory and Henry. What boyish 
eloquence, running back over the half-century, could be un¬ 
rolled, if every tree in those old forests about the college 
were a phonograph! 

It was a pleasure to see present so many of the preachers 
of the Holston Conference, — men who have lived and la¬ 
bored for truth and purity throughout the country. From 


99 


the time the college was founded, it has been their pride. 
The prayers that have gone up from these devout and worthy 
men, and the words spoken by them, in season , for the college, 
have had no little to do with its great work. 

Rev. Sam Small refused to accept the payment of his 
travelling expenses by the treasurer of the Young Men’s 
Christian Association. The young gentleman seemed a little 
embarrassed, and told him the money had been collected for 
him, and wanted to know what to do with it. Past scenes, no 
doubt, gave the turning of the phrase to the laconic reply, 
“ Pour it back in the jug.” 

The following is one of the many jovial conversations over¬ 
heard by the reporter between old friends : — 

Mr. B. — “ Old fellow, the last time I remember seeing 
you, you were sitting over there behind the stove in the 
Calliopean Hall, talking with your accustomed fluency to a 
pretty girl.” 

Mr. C. — “ Yes; and if you had been over there talking to 
the pretty girl, instead of giving all your time to books and 
debates, you would not now be a crusty old bachelor.” 

Mr. B. — “ Ah ! I have no doubt, if I had been over there, 
you would now be the old bachelor instead of me.” 

On Wednesday the degree of Doctor of Divinity was con¬ 
ferred upon Rev. D. S. Hearon of Martha Washington Col¬ 
lege, and that of Doctor of Laws upon Hon. John Goode of 
Norfolk, Va. 

A very cordial letter was received from Professor E. E. 
Hoss of Vanderbilt University, but was misplaced after the 
reading at the lunch, so that we are unable to place it before 
our readers. Emory and Henry has no worthier or truer 
friend and alumnus than Professor Hoss. He is known by his 
words and works. His strong mind has won for him marked 
success, and his warm heart has won friends who rejoice in 
that success. His letter evinced unabated interest in the 
fortunes of the college where he has worked so well, both as 
student and teacher. 


IOO 


Congressman Henry Bowen of Tazewell County, who is an 
old student of the college, was expected to be present and re¬ 
spond to a toast at the Alumni lunch, but wrote that business 
engagements detained him. He wrote, “ Emory and Henry 
has, and shall always have, my hearty good wishes for her con¬ 
tinued usefulness and prosperity.” Mr. Bowen is a courteous, 
hospitable gentleman of wide influence and popularity. 

Bishop McTyeire remarked to the writer upon the conclu¬ 
sion of one of the exercises, “ Why, this renews my youth: 
you all are having here the very cream of things.” All who 
heard him, joined in saying he furnished his share of it. 

The thanks of the committee who had in hand the getting 
up of the lunch are especially due to the ladies of the com¬ 
munity, who rendered such valuable assistance. In such a 
large gathering of men, the ladies should not be forgotten ; 
so here is a toast, “To the bright creatures who have made 
happy the lives of our alumni.” 

Amid the whisperings of promenading couples, the songs 
and laughter of homeward-bound students, and the mellow 
light of the moon falling upon the whole, the scene closed. 
The occasional gleam of a cigar under the trees told of old 
Calliopeans and Hermesians still lingering over the college 
memories. The occasion was a happy, successful one. 

The response of Rev. Sam W. Small to the sentiment, 
“ Many bright pulpit-lights have been kindled at her altars,” 
was a rare piece of eloquence. It brought the smiles and 
tears. 

The Alumni Association sent a vote of thanks to Professor 
James A. Davis for his work in publishing the semi-centennial 
catalogue and historical register of the college. This is an 
admirable work, containing a fine steel engraving of the 
grounds and buildings, along with the pictures of twenty or 
thirty gentlemen who have been prominently connected with 
the college as trustees or teachers. It gives a list of all the 
students who have ever attended the college, with their pres¬ 
ent address and occupation, when known, besides a great deal 
of other interesting matter. 


IOI 


Just before the opening of the oratorical contest for the 
Robertson prize on Monday, the following letter from Gov. 
Wyndham Robertson was read. We consider it a fitting 
close for these proceedings, and would take this opportunity 
of expressing the esteem and hearty good wishes of students 
and teachers for this aged and honorable man : — 

The Meadows near Abingdon. 

May 23, 1887. 

To the Faculty of Emory and Henry College. 

Gentlemen , — I thank you for your kind remembrance of me, and 
your courteous invitation to attend the interesting ceremonies pro¬ 
posed for the fiftieth anniversary of the college. But laboring under 
the weight of eighty-five years, and a- disabling malady, I shall be 
readily held excused by you for my unwilling absence from your 
celebration. I congratulate you on the maintained, and, as I learn, 
increased, prosperity of the institution, despite the many adverse 
obstacles to its development which have attended it from its birth. 
When established, it was as a literary oasis opened to the thirsty 
traveller in a parched and barren desert. Soon, new springs and 
patches of verdure were evolved amid its sands, which, although dis¬ 
pensing beneficently needed refreshment to the still increasing num¬ 
bers of those who sought their bounty, yet necessarily drew off many 
who else had sought your shades, and extended your usefulness. 
Still, to Emory and Henry attaches the immortal honor of having 
been the first to extract from the primeval rock its hidden waters. 

Schools of the type of yours are of all the most beneficent. Uni¬ 
versities, indeed, to hold aloft, and ever higher advance, the torch of 
science, and primaries still to keep alive its ever-expiring fires, are 
indeed indispensable. But as, to the cosmos of the physical world, 
its heights and depths are both necessary to maintain its balance, it 
is yet its vast intermediate plains that chiefly assure its stability; so, 
to that of science, it is its middle schools and classes that mainly 
impart to it its value and completeness. To this high mission its 
earliest ministers and guardians, Collins, Wiley, and Longley, 
dedicated and committed it. 

Two of them, at the end of half a century, still survive to witness 
the success of their good work, — the pulpit, the bar, the forum, the 
lecture-room, all useful and honorable callings, indeed, among men, 
adorned by its sons, and testifying to their cares : they sought no other 
reward. 


102 


Who elect to be schoolmasters have already renounced Mammon, 
and seek honor only in their disciples. To these, as Cornelia to her 
sons, when asked for their treasure, may they proudly point, — shin¬ 
ing with a light by which the jewels of the millionnaire and the 
money-changer shine pale and dead indeed. May you, gentlemen, 
emulate the aims of your precursors, and, under auspices more 
hopeful than theirs, achieve a yet higher success ! 

To be remembered, and the hope of continuing to be, as an early 
friend of Emory and Henry, will be a grateful solace for my few 
remaining years, to the regretful sense I feel of the misused privileges 
and wasted time of a long life, now nearing its close. 

I am, gentlemen, with the highest respect, 

Yours truly, 

WYNDHAM ROBERTSON. 

Up to the last moment, we had expected to have for 
publication in this volume the unique paper on the “ History 
of the College,” read by Professor Longley; but he has not 
furnished it. All who were present on that occasion will 
remember this as one of its happiest features, and will join in 
our regrets at not having it laid before the public. 









































